The Edge Hill State School Sustainable Living Kitchen Garden Program is a Sustainability Cross-Curricular initiative in its third year of implementation. Paddock to plate learning experiences are driven by a team of dedicated Year 4 Teachers. The aim is to provide real-world opportunities for students, teachers, parents and community members to develop and put into practice the knowledge, skills and values required to live and work sustainably.
After establishing garden beds and an instructional kitchen; a school wide compost system was introduced. Food scraps are collected from the entire school community to make compost for the organic gardens spread across the school. Year 4 students and teachers conducted an extensive whole school waste audit to establish baseline data to further improve how waste is managed across the school. Students collated and analysed the data and used the findings to present a case for change to the school’s leadership team. Students this year are working on the recommendation to implement a three bin colour coded system to effectively collect recyclables, compost and general waste.
Other avoid, reduce, reuse and recycle practices established in the school include:
- · restoring and repurposing old school furniture
- · transforming discarded timber pallets into planter boxes
- · reusing antiquated netball posts, old fencing, shelving and shade cloth to construct a propagating shed
- · reusing old desk trays as seed raising trays.
Our Year 4 students were the winners of this year’s Cairns Regional Council Short Film Competition Re-Think Waste. Their entry highlighted the efforts the school community is putting into re-thinking what we do with waste as part of their learning in the school’s Sustainable Living Kitchen Garden Program.
The program is supported each year by the school community, parents and volunteers. This year we have been very excited to establish a partnership with Cairns Airport. Spent coffee grinds from the airport cafes are delivered to the school to use on our garden beds and to enhance our compost production.