School Gardens

The following provides information to schools about organisations who can help you utilise school grounds for environmental sustainability education.

Gould Group
Multicultural School Gardens
Schoolgrounds for Learning
Cultivating Community
The Edible Schoolyard
Melbourne Wildlife Sanctuary, La Trobe University
Greening Australia (Victoria)
Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation

Department of Primary Industries - LandLearn

Gould Group
www.gould.edu.au

Multicultural School Gardens © - linking schools to the community
The Multicultural School Gardens is an innovative three-year project engaging ethnic Victorians, particularly targeting older community members, to share their skills and knowledge with students in disadvantaged schools throughout Victoria . 

An intensive, coaching-style approach will be used for this project where a Gould Group facilitator work closely with the participant schools to guide them in establishing their garden infrastructure and systems to embed the multicultural garden in the school - physically, within the curriculum and as an ongoing community volunteer project.

The project will cater primarily for students in the middle years of schooling and include classroom resources to help teachers integrate the project into key learning areas including Numeracy, Literacy, LOTE, Science, History, Geography, Art and Technology, and into the Victorian Essential Learning Standards.

We are working with the Department of Education and Training to select the schools that will participate in the program but we are actively seeking funding to extend the program to involve additional schools or we invite schools to work together to find their own local sponsor to support their involvement.

To find out more or to register your interest please contact Jodie Robison on (03) 9532 0909 or email jodier@gould.edu.au

• Two terms of step by step instruction
• Covers schoolgrounds planning, design, project management, fundraising and PR, curriculum and community collaboration
• Uses a predominately online delivery mode - so time and location flexible
• Online tools for producing a masterplan, action plans and student projects
• Two half day workshops at Moorabbin - one per term
• The cost is $1000 ($1100 with GST) for the two term program
• 2006 course commences week one Term 3
• Supported by the Victorian Department of Education and the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust
• An expanded and improved version of the 2004/2005 Schoolgrounds Masterplanning  program

Back to top

Cultivating Community
Http://www.cultivatingcommunity.org.au/
Cultivating Community (CC) is a Melbourne based community organisation. We provide a number of services around community food systems. We can provide your school with a range of services around the concept of the edible school garden. These include consultation, design, construction advice and staffing of an ongoing program.

CC believes strongly in community consultation and has strong environmental principles. CC supply the garden specialist at two Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation schools and run our own programs at schools in Clayton and Ashburton. Our services are limited to Melbourne but we are able to offer advice to regional Victoria .

Contact email info@cultivatingcommunity.org.au or call 03 9415 6580 / fax 03 9415 6507

The Edible Schoolyard
http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/
The Edible Schoolyard, in collaboration with Martin Luther King Junior Middle School, provides urban public school students with a one-acre organic garden and a kitchen classroom. Using food systems as a unifying concept, students learn how to grow, harvest, and prepare nutritious seasonal produce. Experiences in the kitchen and garden foster a better understanding of how the natural world sustains us, and promote the environmental and social well being of our school community.

Melbourne Wildlife Sanctuary, La Trobe University
www.latrobe.edu.au/mws/

Sustainability Leaders
 The Sustainability Leaders experience incorporates the development of leadership, team building, communication and decision making processes into a context that enables students to focus on social, environmental and economic sustainability.

Students develop a list of achievable school-ground projects. They plan the steps to completion and celebration of their goals. We focus on the 'Leadership Kite' - a decision making tool, devised to assist in the processes of group dynamics

The experience can provide expertise to students and teachers on habitat creation (nesting boxes, frog bogs, lizard lounges, etc), biodiversity, and planting / propagation of indigenous plants.
Suitable for: Grades 6 - 10

To substitute for lack of hollows we build nesting boxes. We introduce your students to the importance of hollows and they can create their own Nesting Box - A great interdisciplinary experience. This experience can be delivered anywhere in the Metro region and is supported through a number of resources available through our Learning Centre.
Suitable for: Grades 4 - 10

Our staff can visit your school and assist in the design and creation of your habitat patch. We can assist your teachers with understanding of propagation and planting methods and can support your project with a range of excursion experiences and resources. Our nursery can also supply the plants you'd need to get your project started.
Suitable for: Any age group

For more information about the programs, please contact the Sanctuary on (03) 9479 1206.

Back to top

•  Education kit - integrating environmental education across all curriculum areas - available online. The kit contains T he Revegetation Calendar - a month by month guide to school biodiversity projects.

•  Revegetation projects -  physical, technical and financial support providing schools with hands-on assistance for school and community revegetation projects. Students create imaginative gardens to explore the cultural and ecological significance of indigenous plants.

•  Professional development - Our annual forum in Melbourne provides educators with a toolbox full of information, resources, contacts and ideas to implement environmental change in schools

For more information visit the Greening Australia's (Victoria) website.

Back to top


Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation
The Kitchen Garden Program
www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au

The Foundation has developed a comprehensive gardening and cooking program in which primary school students come together to share dishes made with the food they have grown. The Kitchen Garden program aims to introduce the students to the benefits of fresh produce and provide them with the necessary practical skills essential to the development of life-long healthy eating habits.

The Foundation has piloted the program at Collingwood College over the last five years and is now working with Nunawading Primary School to establish the necessary infrastructure (garden and kitchen with eating facility) and implement the program. The Victorian State Government recently announced that 39 schools in Victoria will receive funding towards implementation of the Kitchen Garden Program over the next four years. The Foundation will work with the Victorian Government to roll out the program to schools that apply for the grant (keep a look out for details on SAKGF website).

The Kitchen Garden program is timetabled into the school curriculum. Each week children across Grades 3 to 6 spend 45 minutes in an extensive vegetable garden which they have helped design, build and maintain on the school grounds. They learn about plants, about seed saving, about water management, about compost and soil health and they also learn about the seasons, about plant varieties, about ripeness and about the connection between care in the garden and flavour on the plate. They then spend one and a half hours each week in a specially adapted kitchen preparing and sharing a variety of meals created from their produce. The program employs two part-time specialist staff; a qualified gardener and a qualified cook.

'Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids' (rrp $39.95) - the story of the Kitchen Garden at Collingwood College, incorporating practical guidelines, planting lists, menus and recipes. The book will be available for sale through the Foundation website. Tours of the Kitchen Garden at Collingwood College are held monthly.

Contact Sophie at info@kitchengardenfoundation.org.au or on (03) 8415 1993

Back to top


Department of Primary Industries - LandLearn
www.landlearn.net.au

LandLearn provides a structure and support for schools to incorporate the studies of sustainable agriculture including natural resource management into the curriculum. LandLearn assists schools to connect 'edible gardens' to agriculture as the source of our food. Audience of the program, (ie teachers or students or
both).
LandLearn is a state wide program working with teachers of middle years to integrate these themes into the
curriculum through support and resources. LandLearn supports teachers through professional learning based on Learning Domains or Levels, for whole school staff, cluster groups or trainee teachers. Teaching and learning support material is available on CD at a small cost and some activities are available for free on our website. A quarterly newsletter mailed to every Victorian school is available as an email on request.

Contacting the LandLearn Team by e-mail landlearn.program@dpi.vic.gov.au or call (03) 5833 5366

Back to top

Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne
http://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/

RBG Education provides a Sustainable Gardening program that gives students experience with the real work of an organic kitchen garden. Gardening experiences focus on propagation, wormfarms, water-wise gardening, indigenous plants and tending a food garden using organic methods.

Food Forest focuses on plants as food, giving the students experiences to look at garden ecology and nutrient cycles.

The Ian Potter Foundation Children's Garden offers teachers a wealth of simple ideas to turn your school ground into a landscape to inspire learning and to celebrate the imagination. The PD program Garden Based Learning provides teachers with a full-day workshop. Teachers examine links between VELS and Gardening, explore place-based learning, gain hands-on experience building a no-dig garden and build skills for developing both spaces for imaginative play and food gardens.

The School Garden Awards Ceremony, a day celebrating children and gardening, has been held at the Royal Botanic Gardens since 2004. The Australian Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne offers a wealth of inspiration and great examples of how to use Australian plants in the home or school garden.

Water in a dry country is a teacher led program which highlights how Australian plants, peoples and gardens have adapted to life on this driest inhabited continent.  Hands on creative design activity supports an imaginative exploration of garden design and plant care.

Kulin Culture, full day (May 2007) teacher professional development workshop exploring indigenous land management and cultural activities.  Led by Kulin elder Vicki Nicholson-Brown this will be a day of hands on involvement in the bush and at the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne's Australian Garden.

For more information, please contact Christine Joy, Education Coordinator Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne on (03) 9252 2454 or email Christine.Joy@rbg.vic.gov.au




Page last updated: 23 May 2007