Bellbrae students grow green future

BELLBRAE Primary School is fostering the next generation of eco-warriors with the help of a Climate Emergency Grant from the Surf Coast Shire council.

The school’s Grade 4 students have transformed areas of the school ground into green spaces by planting local native species, created worm farms, and revitalised two vegetable gardens.

A recycling hub that allows students, their families and teachers to divert waste from landfill and recycle items typically hard to recycle as also been established, along with an environmental report that tracks the school’s recycling results and promotes continuous environmental improvement.

Grade 4 teacher Mark O’Donnell said the climate emergency grant provided the funds to purchase the equipment needed for the project.

“The students loved getting their hands dirty to create the gardens and learn about how they were helping the environment.

“The students have been enthusiastic in establishing and caring for the worm farms. We created three worm farms and have ‘wormologists’ [monitors] that cut up the food and feed the worms twice a week.”

 

 

The leachate, or ‘worm juice’, produced by the farms is collected by the students and fed to the newly established native plants, while approximately two kilograms of worm castings, or ‘worm poo’, was collected and used in the planting of Aboriginal-inspired bush tucker and seasonal vegetables.

Cr Libby Stapleton applauded the project.

“It’s great to see these grants not only helping a local school to create more green space but educating our children, our future environmental guardians, about the small but significant things they can be doing at home and in their community to help the climate,” she said.

“The recycling hub, created by the students, is a great project for those hard to recycle items that end up in landfill, and I hear the students have loved seeing the results of what they are saving from landfill.

“All these small initiatives add up to create a bigger solution to the ongoing waste problem. It fills me with hope, and who knows what creative solutions these students will come up with in the future.”