WOORI Yallock Farm School has won a habitat award for the creation of a reconciliation garden featuring indigenous bush tucker.
MORE than 200 students have been involved in propagating the plants that feature in the garden, which was awarded last Monday 10 December with the Habitat Action award as part of the Yarra Ranges Council’s Learning for Sustainability schools program.
The council’s HabitAT School Awards is celebrating its fourth year, recognising the efforts of local schools in raising awareness, understanding and enhancement of our local natural environment.
WYFS teacher Peter Preuss said the award was a great way to acknowledge the efforts of more than 200 students that had been part of the project over the past two years.
“The students have created magnificent art and have built ponds, a creek and bridges,” he said. “They have landscaped a significant area of the school with plants that have a known traditional use by the Wurundjeri, the custodial tribe of the Yarra Valley.”
He said part of the award was a perpetual trophy in the form of a magnificent sculpture. “This giant possum sculpture will be circulated for display among our referring secondary and primary schools in recognition of their students’ contribution to the project,” he said.
The Reconciliation Garden was officially launched, before receiving the award, at a ceremony conducted by Bill Nicholson, Project Officer and Elder of the Wurundjeri Council.
“Local Aboriginal Culture has always been a part of the school’s academic program,” Mr Preuss said. “However, for the Wurundjeri Council to endorse our project and the curriculum material we have put together is significant. “Other local schools exploring this topic, which will be a feature of the pending national curriculum, can use our resources as a model.”
Yarra Ranges Council’s Learning for Sustainability Officer Anthony Mann said teaching sustainability enhanced students’ knowledge, connection and appreciation for the natural world.
“When you give them that ownership of the natural world, they’ll feel responsible for it as well, and have a great knowledge as to why the Yarra Ranges is so environmentally unique,” he said.
“It’s about empowering the students to have greater ownership over their local community and realizing their actions do make a difference.”
The award includes a perpetual trophy, a personalised print for each school with photos of the school’s natural environment, plus $700 worth of planting materials from the council’s Ribbon of Green program and the opportunity to go to Melbourne Water’s Kids Teaching Kids conference.
