Around the classrooms

Year 10 Outdoor Education Waste Audit

As part of the Year 10 Outdoor & Environment Studies, we have been looking into ways we can reduce our environmental footprint. The City of Stonington with EnvironCon Australia ran a Waste Audit at MGSC for the Outdoor Education class. The students completed an audit of our waste after lunchtime break.

Waste audits are a great way to start the process of reducing waste by understanding what is being thrown away. Students sorted and categorised the waste produced at school.

We will receive a comprehensive report of the results and recommendations on ways the school can reduce its waste. The report will include observations and actions suggested by students throughout the audit that we will use to put together a plan to reduce waste.

We are encouraging the whole MGSC community to have a look at what they are putting into their waste bins in an effort to reduce the impact we are having.

Justine Bowers

Outdoor Education and PE teacher

Railway Ambassadors

On Thursday 12 March we went on an excursion to Mentone train station, where we took a guided tour from the head engineer, Steven, to lean about the works behind the upcoming level crossing removal project. The purpose of the project is to help the safety of the community and everyone involved. They are removing the main crossing on Balcombe Road just next to the apartment buildings allowing traffic to travel smoothly leading to fewer collisions, as well an enhancing their accessibility and making it as easy as possible for everyone to catch public transport. In doing this they are filling in the existing station keeping the heritage buildings and landscape intact while making the train run underground to a new station placed 150 meters south (towards Kilbreda). 

This project will run over the course of the following year and be completed in early 2021 however Mentone station will be up and running by June 2020 shortly followed by Cheltenham's completion in mid August. 

This project to remove all 50 stations around Victoria is estimated to cost around 8.3 billion dollars which is a 38% increase on what was expected. Steven explained to us that they spend around 1 million dollars a day through resources such as labour, materials and equipment. 

The process of the project has three major components starting with design, then focusing on how to make it come to life, and concluding with the building and completion of the station. We started working with Alison (the event organiser) late last year before the construction had begun. We used augmented reality to walk around the station viewing its features and design elements such as a new kiosk at Cheltenham and a viewing deck of the station at Mentone. 

Although it is frustrating now with the replacement buses and closing of roads, watching it come together is really cool. Walking through the station in a June this year after tracking its journey in person from start to the finish will be pretty sweet. The new snack equipped station with community sitting areas to socialise with others will be worth it in the end. For more information about the station and pictures of the design sketches feel free to check out their website at https://levelcrossings.vic.gov.au/projects/balcombe-road-mentone.

Florence Green and Siena Pidd (Year 10)

Railway ambassadors