Sustainability

Chickens

We are so lucky to have a generous and caring community with many volunteers offering to help care for our chickens over the holidays. In the past some families have had to come up more than once during the holidays, but this time we had a different family for every single day. Your help is so much appreciated.

A huge public thank you to the following students and their families:

There were other families who offered to help and we hope we can call on you for the September holidays. Our chickens are very lucky to have so many interested people looking after their welfare.

Kitchen Garden

This term the year 3 students will be participating in the Kitchen Garden program for the first 5 weeks, followed by the year 2 students. With Mrs Cedro away for the first 3 weeks, we have Miss Torpey helping Mrs Cristiano in the outdoor kitchen. Our first session focused on bok choy which is in season at the moment, and part of the Asian greens vegetables. The year 3s made a delicious Bok Choy Noodle Salad which they happily enjoyed. It is a recipe they can all repeat at home quite easily. 

In the garden we harvested our bok choy, and  demonstrated how to use a knife to cut off the leaves to use for recipes. We also harvested the plant and have used the root base to conduct an experiment. We have placed them in water to see if we can grow a new plant from an existing plant. We discussed the benefits of growing food this way. Outside the Sustainability room we have set up our experiments and will observe the growth over the next couple of weeks.

Thank you to all the students for remembering their aprons and tea towels, and garden gloves, which will need a good wash before the next session. The gloves were well used pulling out weeds that had set in over the holidays.

The year 3 students are very enthusiastic and helpful and clearly have a good appetite!!

Year 4 Stewardship

The year 4 students have been brainstorming ways to improve our school environment to enhance the playtime experience for students using sustainable practices. In groups the students are working on submitting a proposal for their ideas including design and c

onstruction logistics. We look forward to sharing these ideas with you soon.

Year 6 Sustainability Leaders

We are pleased to announce that St Justin’s has received a prize for our entry into the International Compost Awareness Week photo. We were one of ten finalists who received a Biobag package that we will put to use in our outdoor kitchen to collect compost and seal food leftovers. 

The year 6 sustainability leaders will be planning for the upcoming National Tree Day. This will involve organising the supply of native trees to plant in our school. While every day can be Tree Day, the celebration of Schools Tree Day and National Tree Day is the last Friday in July, and first Sunday in August respectively. In 2022, Schools Tree Day is Friday 29th July and National Tree Day is Sunday 31st July.

Vote For a Tree….Help Grow the School  

St Justin’s is participating in a promotion run by Brandon Park Shopping Centre where students will be asked to decorate a cardboard tree. Our school has been provided with a 1.6m, 3D tree made from X-board (manufactured from 96% recycled paper waste and is 100% recyclable). Our mission is to encourage our students to let their imagination run wild and get creative by decorating our school tree in a ‘Spring’ theme. 

Decorated trees from participating schools will be displayed on the ground level at Brandon Park Shopping Centre between Wednesday 10th August and Sunday 9th October 2022 for everyone to admire. Cash prizes will be awarded to the top 3 best decorated trees. In addition, customers will be encouraged to vote for their favourite tree via the QR code provided. Trees with the most votes will win the Customer’s choice prize of $1,000 Cash! We will keep you posted about what our decorated tree looks like and how you can support us in this promotion.