Taking the classroom into the great outdoors

Landcare grant helps fund St Martins garden project

The Year 3 gardening program at St Martins Lutheran College received a boost recently when it was awarded a Woolworths Junior Landcare Grant.

It means the current cohort of Year 3 students can start moving full steam ahead on their vision for the existing gardening space.

The Class of 2023 is committed to transforming the space into a usable, accessible, and thriving learning environment for future students.

The students are looking to create raised garden beds to aid access, fences to keep the chickens and students out, a watering system to ensure their vegetables can grow throughout holiday breaks and a fruit orchard so all the school can enjoy healthy fruit snacks.

St Martins Lutheran College was one of more than 1100 Woolworths Junior Landcare Grants awarded. ‘Food for Thought’ is the name of the gardening project, with the aim of students growing and cooking with their own produce, immersing in a ‘paddock to plate’ experience.

They will be involved in cultivating garden beds, planting and propagating seeds, pest and weed control, fertilising, harvesting, cooking, and consuming their own produce.

The expected environmental and educational outcomes of the project include students learning about plant life cycles, understanding where their food comes from and actively engaging in real-life hands-on learning.

Alongside their worm farm and compost bin, the students are shown how valuable food waste is when it is not placed in landfill rather reused as valuable fertiliser.

Year 3 Teacher Nicole Halloran said they hope to engage the students with real life learning experiences.

“We want them to experience the joy and the wonder of watching their hard work grow, watching their food thrive under their love, their care and their management,” Ms Halloran said.

“We’re really encouraging students to taste new foods while learning a life-long skill.”

Year 3 Student Lukas Reiter said his favourite part about gardening is cooking, getting all of the food out of the garden, getting dirty and getting out of the classroom.

Year 3 Student Isaac Waters said cooking the food and eating it, planting seeds and picking the vegetables to cook with was his favourite part about working in the garden.

GETTING THEIR HANDS DIRTY: (Above) Both Year 3 classes prepare to plan the new gardeningarea; (below left) Pippa Lewis waters the plants and (below (right) Kimiora & Tennesee show off their plan for the garden

ON THE COVER: Hudson shows off some freshly picked strawberries