Leeming Garden Build

Leeming Senior High School and HotRock are busy constructing their new garden this week.  Yey.  Students and teachers are hard at work, and hopefully Ingrid and Richard too.  I'll put up some photos when they're back. 

Fun and Inspiration at the Weekend

David and Skye in Action. Skye liked the dancing book.

Ingrid spreads the word. Giving away packets of coriander seeds hleped too.

We had a fantastic weekend at the Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta. Ingrid and I shared duties on our stand over the weekend, David and Skye helped me out ;) and Tundi (?), Ingrid's daughter had organised a fashion remodelling/recycling area futher up the street and had made herself a great outfit. Maybe Ingrid can post a photo?

I really enjoyed hearing how enthusiastic people were about what we are doing with Schools. You would hope they would be at a Sustainability fiesta but nonetheless people were eager to talk to us and very encouraging.  Our coriander seeds ran out and the leaflet stock was depleted. We got quite a few names on our living library list too. This is a new idea which I hope we will develop over the next few months so thank you to those that signed up, I'll be writing more to you soon.

So many people there doing great work. Shani and Tim of course for organising it all, opening their house and accomodation at the Painted Fish and generally getting people in their community on board.

Its down that way, no up that way! So many things going on it was hard to keep track.

I had some good conversations with Helen and Tim at Sustainable Energy Now. I'm impressed by their campaigning. Some good stats in their brochure....did you know that if just a quarter of homes currently supplied by synergy got a 1.5kw solar system this creates as much energy as the current coal fired power genration in WA. The friendly people at Fern community gardens opposite also signed up to our living library.

I loved the 'recycled' bikes. I've got a groovy rusty blue retro one myslef and was pretty inspired to try turning it into one that I could carry Skye in. Here's a just one of the many creations.

Guerrilla gardening was in evidence. Not sure if the chickens stay out on the verge all the time but the vegetables in the verge looked (and hopefully taste) great. So sculptural.
















I and many other people I noticed brought a rug from carpetsforcommunities.org.  Great little rugs made from recyled t shirt off cuts by women in Cambodia and all profits go directly to them. The stand was run by volunteers. I even got a photo of my rug being made. Its now cheering up our bathroom. If you're going to buy things then I can't think of a better type of enterprise to buy them from.

Loads of stuff for kids, the HotRockers to be; fairy gardens, exercise bikes to generate electricity with, music, costumes. I was really impressed by the model sustainable houses built by Year 6s. We've got a similar model building exercise as the finale to our Global Warming:Global Warning module (see the lesson 'What's the plan?). Its for slightly older students and I have to say I think its a great learning activity at any age. Really creative, allows them to express their ideas and its hands on and practical, makes a change from writing it all up in an essay.

Students from some of our schools were picking out their friends in our photos and other people were happy to find out what their old school was doing for sustainability.

I could go on and on. Can't wait till next year. I'll leave you with my favourite costume.

Power to the Pupils

Ingrid reported on the meetings she'd been attending in our partner schools and I was struck by two examples of students being given ownership of projects.

At Mandurah Baptist college students volunteered to adopt vegetable beds. They were told what they would need to do to maintain them and grow their vegetables and now there is a waiting list of students who want to adopt a bed and gardening going on in breaks and after school. This is in contrast to before where 'everyone' was responsible and there were issues with harvesting. This seems like a great step and is testament to how well students perform when given responsibility, real ownership and the chance to prove themselves. Good on the teachers for making this happen, its not always easy to let go fo the reins.

At another school, John Curtin College of the Arts, one of the biology teachers has rewritten the curriculum to allow studetns to support each other via a wiki. A great way to get students to realise that they can all help each other to do well in their exams, that they are not competing against each other for the best result but can share knowledge and ideas, reduce their workload and support each other. Wiki's are shared spaces on the internet which different people (e.g. all members of a class) can edit and add information too. A great tool, if you don't use them elsewhere then start by using them for revision, with different groups preparing notes on diff topics would be great.
http://www.wikispaces.com/ Go here to set up your wiki. Free for K-12 education.

This great video explain how they work and what you might use them for really simply
Wikis in plain english

So Power to the Pupils - get them to help themselves and free up some time for you!

Lucy

Geography Modules

The Rogal Geographical Society has developed lots of full modules for geography teaching in secondary schools. Lots of these cover themes of sustainability...

• You are what you eat

• Changing Climates

• The Geography of my stuff

You can download resources separately or the whole module can be downloaded in a zip file. Loads of other subjects on there too. KS3 is for years 7, 8 & 9, KS4-5 is for yrs 10,11 & 12.

Geog away, Lucy

New lessons on BFA organic gardening program

The Biological Farmers of Australia organic food gardening program has been updated with 5 new lessons. These include why plants need water and how to conserve it, 13 recipes using garden produce and soil pH and its importance. This set of lessons is aimed at students aged 8-12, so primary through to year 8 of high school although much of the material could be adapted for older students.

If your school has a HotRock garden have a look at these resources.

Organic Food gardening Lessons

Lucy