By Callum Ludwig
Students at Cire Community School in Yarra Junction have been chipping in to help beautify their local community.
The Work Related Skills class visited the Upper Yarra Museum to help in the garden and around the machinery display areas, providing a practical opportunity for them to work on their skills.
Teacher Andrew Steele said it was good for students to have the opportunity to go down to the museum and do things, rather than trying to explain how to do them in class.
“Frank Colverson took me around and showed me the little jobs they could do, and then the students got together and worked on each project and basically beautified the yards and display areas that the museum wanted doing,” he said.
“It gave them the opportunity to work together as a team and they also had opportunities to take leadership roles, they were feeling quite special when they were in charge and telling people what to do, so that was quite fun.”
The students moved around some scoria, a form of volcanic rock, spread tanbark and mulch, did some weeding and started some garden projects in the yard at the museum.
Mr Steele said it was all about sharing community help.
“We have also been to the organic Blueberry Farm in Yellingbo and helped out there, it was just great to learn all these new things from especially the owner of the Blueberry Farm as well who taught students how to prune things and how to care for the garden,” he said.
“They definitely felt proud after they stood back and took a few photos of what they achieved and there was that sense of doing something good for the community, which was great. They wouldn’t normally get that in classrooms.”
Frank Colverson and the Museum committee helped supply the equipment and materials for the students to aid them with their work.
Mr Colverson said the museum was only too willing to provide the venue for the Cire students to enhance their skills.
“It’s been a mutually beneficial partnership because they’ve done some good work. We’ve had some comments from the public and the museum’s voluntary staff that it looks really good and we’re certainly only too willing to keep doing that if they wish to,” he said.
“It was significant work that we may not have been able to get around to doing, we’ve only got a small number of volunteers who do grounds maintenance, but the Cire students certainly boosted that with the work they did.”
Cire Community School is open to further opportunities for their Work-Related Skills classes to get out and assist local community groups or industries and anyone interested can contact the school to see if a partnership can be arranged.
