THE PATCH
PRIMARY SCHOOL
Dandenong Ranges, Victoria
Project Leaders:
Michelle Rayner, Assistant Principal
The Patch Primary School
Simon Woodland & Anthony Mann
Yarra Ranges Council
LEARNING FOR SUSTAINABILITY
By Lucinda Kininmonth
Australia is the driest inhabited continent with its 22 million residents using
one million litres of fresh water every
year. If everyone alive today were to
live like this, we would need four planet
earths to absorb all the waste and provide the energy, water and materials
we would consume.
Site surveys were taken to investigate
features such as slope, aspect and area,
soil type, pH, drainage and soil profile
of the chosen garden area. In total, 300
students spent nine months measuring, mapping and calculating, drawing,
writing and presenting their ideas and
findings.
Working towards a common vision of a
sustainable future since mid 1990’s is
Yarra Ranges Council and Patch Primary
School.
63 models from across the school were
then shared and analysed to identify
the most popular garden elements like;
ponds, mazes, animals, dry gardens,
food forests, pizza gardens.
The Patch Primary School is well known
for its innovative approach to environmental education. With 280 students,
the Patch has a 4.8 ha of grounds including outdoor classrooms, wetlands
and a multi award winning “Learning
Landscape”.
After a lot of interest from many schools
the Yarra Ranges decided to create a
curriculum resource that would allow
students of all ages to understand what
makes up a healthy habitat by using
their immediate neighbourhood as a
study site.
The partnership has played a central
role in creating the Learning for Sustainability (LfS) initiative – a support
network that now engages numerous
other schools in the area.
With their first successful ‘Wetlands Project’, the focus of the partnership shifted towards establishing a large garden
on one acre at the back of the school.
The project began with engaging all students, staff and interested community
members. LfS officers and new partners
from both the university sector and local business contributed expertise to
help students shape the project.
52 SwitchOn
After trials in three local schools, the
Habitat School Census was launched
in early 2009. The next step was to
create an annual awards scheme – the
Habitat School Awards, with prizes for
three distinct categories: Habitat Census, Habitat Plan, and Habitat Action.
Encouraging all schools in the municipality to not only use the Census, but
to translate their findings into action
that enriches the curriculum and delivers real benefits for endangered local
wildlife.
The Patch PS was one of the first schools
to adopt the Census, and it soon became
a central part of their curriculum.
The school has gone on to win all
three categories of the Habitat School
Awards, mentor other schools through
the process, and develop a Master Plan
for the entire school grounds based on
the work of students.
“I hope to do more research on bugs
and what they eat and what they
live in. This year I learnt a lot more
on weeds and which are which. I also
was surprised to hear about all the different animals in our garden like the
powerful owl and platypus.” Ewen,
Grade 3
“I think that the garden will stay in
my mind forever as it’s a great influence on kids like myself and it teaches
younger kids to not only respect each
other but to respect the planet and the
way it keeps us alive. I also think that
it’s great that we have animals that
we can actually handle; that’s awesome as well.”
Nat, Grade 6
Institutio
Excellentia