Newham Primary School is seeing results from several of its sustainability and revegetation projects, which were recently commended through a Landcare partnerships award.
The school was highly commended in the Australian Government Community Partnerships Landcare Award for its collaboration with the Newham and District Landcare Group.
Newham Primary School sustainability teacher Libby Fullard said that projects within the school help increase biodiversity in the region and teach children about native plants and animals.
Projects have included removing large willow trees in waterways to be replaced with native plants, and planting grasses, sedges, and other riparian plants.
“As the children grow, they will watch the plants grow – and there are tangible outcomes in terms of change,” Ms Fullard said.
Ms Fullard said that school has also collaborated with the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation and used resources on First Nations perspectives to guide Indigenous plantings on the school grounds.
“We’ve got six species … on signage with information about the animals, and we’ve also got some First Nations perspectives on [those].”
She said that the projects have also helped students to apply what they’ve learnt at home.
“The children are talking about the fact that they’ve got a creek running through their property and the families are doing the landcare fence off inside of the creeks from cattle and … stock, so that it can revegetate and … improve water quality,” she said.
“They live in such a distinct landscape with Hanging Rock there and the Macedon and Cobaw ranges … everything we do provides a link to the different bio links that are already there, where animals can move throughout the landscape.”
The school’s planting sites and the Andersons Road revegetation site – a collaboration with Newham and District Landcare Group – are located within the Cobaw Biolink.
Oscar Parry
