Kids are Hands on with the Environment and Learning at Multicultural Harkaway

Harkaway Primary is a school of choice for families looking for something different. And the families vote with their feet, the average distance families travel to get to school is 11.6km, this compares to 3.97km for similar schools.

Harkaway is close to polyglot Dandenong and the distribution of socio-economic advantage shows that more than 60% of students come from the bottom half of the range.

“However, no matter what postcode our families are from, being a Harkaway student means having the power to shape your world,” Leigh Johnson, Principal, says.

“I’m a self-confessed education-research nerd. As a result, our team get to be across best practice for teaching and learning from right across Western Education. The knock-on effect for our students is some really high levels of learning growth and performance. We are all about enacted learning. ‘Nothing is taught ‘till something is learned, and nothing is learned ‘till you’ve done something with it’ is our mantra.”

As an International Baccalaureate World School, Harkaway has families from across the globe. This includes India, China, Afghanistan, Iran, Korea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Germany and New Zealand.

“On any given day, students might be video conferencing with our sister school in China about a festival, or developing climate change education resources with kids in Kupang.

“Whilst our grounds are small, we are line of sight due south to the Mornington Peninsula and can catch a glimpse of the bays on either side. We have trees that predate white settlement. We’ve been around for a very long time. Next year we start planning in earnest for our 150th celebration.”

Harkaway Primary has teamed up with Deakin University’s Enacting Climate Education International Program, trying to answer the question: “How can school science prepare young people for 21st Century futures marked by the major socio-ecological challenges of the Anthropocene?"

“At Harkaway, a small part of the answer is developing a curriculum we’ve called Learning for Climate-Change Adaptation (LCA). This feeds from the Victorian Science Curriculum, Learning for Sustainability and bundles it into climate change education with a focus on taking action that builds hope for the future. We are in the very early stages of this - but the Schools in Fire Country resource is an excellent, scalable example of what can be achieved,” Johnson says.

There are dozens of other examples of small actions that add up to a big difference. Reducing waste, reducing energy use, reducing fresh water use and increasing biodiversity across the school year on year are all the standard focus. This comes straight from the Resource Smart Schools framework. ResourceSmart Schools is a free Victorian Government program run by Sustainability Victoria that helps schools embed sustainability in everything they do.

Then there are the quirky actions - paying an extra 10c on Zooper Doopers (for a refund when the plastic wrapper is returned) and sourcing second hand, reconditioned technology and furniture for example.

“Or our Day for Celebrating Failure and House Huddles connect with broader actions. Checking the water tank levels, hanging out with frogs and lizards, swimming with weedy sea dragons, giving up part of the playground to look after the ancient angophora and student led… well, student led just about everything - all add up to an environmentally active school culture.”

Each year all students engage with a unit of inquiry themed Sharing the Planet. This ensures that adults and children are continually inquiring into the issues and options for fresh learning and taking environmental action. This sets the groundwork for place based, participatory learning.

“In the end, it turns out that our learning environment and our lived environment are inextricably connected.”

The students have been engaged in ongoing water quality testing in a former platypus habitat on Cardinia creek near the school.

“We love this stuff! For over 6 years, we’ve been wondering down to end of a local dirt track, plastic bucket, nephelometric turbidity testing tube and ph strips in hand. Sometimes we wear superhero costumes, but mostly it’s the lab coats.”

The program is a citizen science project called River Detectives run by Victoria’s Catchment Management Authorities. Each year students regularly visit the same local waterway, measure the habitat, water quality and make observations. These are recorded and reported. The students conducting these tests first witnessed the program when they started school as littlies.

“In terms of what our kids are doing around the environment, the answer is multifaceted. For example, students in grades three and four have been looking at the central idea ‘Species are at risk during the Anthropocene’. They scoured the school grounds using technology to identify invasive plant species. They then worked backwards to figure out the human actions causing those species to be where we live and learn. Next, they learned what we can do to protect the native plants.

“Kids in grades five and six used ‘Photostory’ to curate a gallery about the bushfire risk we live with here. We Zoomed in with students from West Kalimantan, Kupang and Jog Jakarta who had all done the same with the natural hazards they face as children. Together they discussed (using a translator app) the actions they can each take to reduce the risk they collectively face from climate change,” he says.

“There is a common view that the curriculum content is an end in itself. This can lead to a view that classrooms exist to embed curriculum content in the individual brain of each child. This mnemonic view of pedagogy certainly has a place. However, it is not sufficient or satisfactory for giving children the power to shape their world. Especially for adapting to a world at +2 degrees.

“This is where Social Cognitive Theory comes in. Personal, Behavioural and Environmental factors all work together to bring the curriculum alive in a way that makes real life connections. The examples above clearly demonstrate that, like neural pathways, it is the connection to the curriculum that is more important than the content alone.”

An investment in solar panels is another way the school looks out for the environment; the system also provides an opportunity for learning.

“For me, this started way back with the Dandenong Ranges Renewable Energy Association. Local residents paid for a solar panels to go on the Emerald Primary School roof.

“Here at Harkaway, we now have two installations, our fossil fuel use has plummeted. Most importantly, our human behaviours have significantly improved. Even though we have solar panels, our energy use continues to drop. The idea is that the Harkaway Environmental Action Team can pocket the savings for use around the school on further projects. I’m not sure they have ever claimed the money though! 

“None the less, with passive heating and cooling, mindful actions by all users of the buildings, and no mains gas - it is conceivable that we are carbon neutral for many days of the year. Of course, with students driving so far to get here, in cars using fossil fuels to charge or run, we still have a long way to go. Perhaps we could install EV chargers powered from the excess PV energy production? 

“At Harkaway, our reason for existing, fuelled by all these 150 years, has been to give children the power to shape their world. We know that the best is yet to come and we are excited to walk alongside each and every student on their own journey of discovery.”

Harkaway is an entrant in Victoria’s Resource Smart Schools Awards, submissions are open now.