A Gentle Lesson in Sustainability

Regularly, staff and students at Torquay Coast Primary School in Victoria get a nice basketful of veggies, herbs and indigenous foods to take home with them. It’s all grown in the school’s thriving garden using compost made from scraps the students and staff have brought in from their homes.

The garden has also become a popular place for the kids to wander through as it buzzes with insects and there’s always something new to see.

But more than providing a few super healthy meals and a fun place to play, the garden, an initiative under the ResourceSmart Schools program from Sustainability Victoria, delivers context to the exploration of sustainability and environment and has been integrated with the school’s culture and teaching.

Students and staff at Torquay Coast Primary School are environmentally conscious and the staff are particularly alert to young peoples’ awareness around climate change. Consequently, and with the opportunities provided by being a new and growing school, Torquay Coast Primary School wanted a rigorous environmental program to implement, leading them to ResourceSmart Schools.

“ResourceSmart Schools became the obvious choice with its multiple modules that cross over the different areas impacting climate change and clear actions to enable students and staff to reduce negative climate impacts,” says Ms Naarah Calvert, Global Studies Teacher.

The effects of working in the garden and making it thrive has left students and staff with a broader and deeper environmental discourse to understand the connections between the use of school resources and climate change. This awareness emerges with students taking pride in the garden areas, noticing the animals and insects, and saving water and other finite resources. The environmental student group, the Web Warriors, is a highly respected school team and regularly presents at school assemblies. Students are always willing to help with different environmental activities.

“Teaching, wellbeing, and support staff increasingly use the gardens to engage students in different curriculum areas and wellbeing initiatives. Staff consciousness around use of resources for teaching and learning has increased and, where possible, staff use recycled materials, focus on nature and encourage students to respect the resources we have at the school,” says Calvert.

Torquay Primary has aligned Inquiry units to the ResourceSmart modules. For instance, the inquiry units for each term, and in every year level, are linked to the four RSS modules: water, waste, energy, and biodiversity. As the students develop their knowledge and ascend year levels, their engagement with the inquiry deepens. The STEM program also engages all student levels with different aspects of the ResourceSmart Schools modules through solar units, lifecycle units, and earth sciences.

Torquay Coast Primary has worked its way to becoming a 5 Star school, the ResourceSmart Schools program’s top ranking that acknowledges the school embeds sustainability in everything it does, no mean feat.

“It has taken six years to undertake and receive the 5 Stars. We focussed on one module a year, completing the actions and providing all evidence needed until we achieved the star. There is some overlap between the modules, so we could use many of our actions for other modules. We also drew on the knowledge and support of the Barwon South ResourceSmart facilitators and other community groups invested in reducing the impact of climate change, such as Barwon Water.”

To other schools considering entering the program Calvert says, “We recommend looking at your inquiry planner and starting there. Ensure all staff understand the requirements of the program and that they communicate to you when they are engaging students with environmental activities. We also encourage a ‘team’ to implement the program, rather than responsibility falling on just one or two staff or community members. In our case, the Specialist team are responsible for the acquittal of the program, it is a role that is undertaken by that team, and new staff members to the team undertake aspects of the program.”

Entries are now open for the 2024 ResourceSmart Schools Awards, this year, Sustainability Victoria is marking 15 years of the ResourceSmart Schools Awards with the theme, ‘Legendary Legacies - what will you leave behind?’. Entries close Friday 22 March 2024.