St Michael’s Grammar School
25 Chapel Street, St Kilda, VIC, 3182
Phone: 85303222
Contact Person:
apage@stmichaels.vic.edu.au
Understanding our current baseline for Sustainability has been a real journey for us here at St Michael’s.
Staff and students have always had a tacit understanding of a commitment to sustainability, but we have never before formally reported on or acknowledged all the work that was occurring simultaneously, yet independently, almost in silos. The AuSSIVic Core module set us with the challenge of accomplishing this.
St Michael’s is a co-educational independent day school 6 kilometers from Melbourne’s CBD. It was established in 1895 and remains on the original campus. The school campus is a little over 2 hectares and has slowly grown over the years with the acquisition of adjacent properties. Since we are in such an urban area we have to utilise the space we have as efficiently as possible.
As a school we thrive on information, so we were pleased to be provided with the opportunity to empirically track our progress with SETS software and being under the invaluable guidance of the staff at CERES, the notion of being able to review our progress with data will enable us to highlight our successes objectively.
The Core Module is our entry point to achieving 5 Star Sustainability Status and is where we focused our energies this year. The Core Module provides us a platform for gathering information and data to create a whole school baseline for the project. At a quick glance it appears as a simple task, however once enshrined in the task, we saw an opportunity for our school to come together and share much of the sustainability work that is already being done on campus. St Michael’s has a very clear ethic when it comes to Sustainability and Community, and as a result we found a strong focus on sustainability in the classroom and on the property. What had never been done before was gathering this information into one place, to actually identify what our community is holistically accomplishing. This revelation sparked excitement across the Junior and Senior School Staff members who are members of the St Michael’s Community Sustainability Group. As discussions unfolded, we learnt about many remarkable projects and classroom learning that already centered on Sustainability. What we also enjoyed as a result of this project was both Senior and Junior school staff and students working together.
As the St Michael’s Community Sustainability Group worked tirelessly to develop processes for gathering the data needed to begin this journey we were pleased to learn of the following implementations across campus that were happening anyway…… regardless of us.
Some of the more exciting sustainability projects going on this year have been;
The Junior School’s Environmental Action Group kicked off ‘Pick up Your Feet Day’ in March which was in line with National Ride2School Day. Students were officially encouraged to walk, ride, scooter or skateboard to School. Whilst the weather was less than kind, the event was a real success. The Environmental Action Group gathered data comparing means of transport on this day to another ordinary day in March. On “Pick Up Your Feet Day’ 205 children either walked, rode, scooted or skateboarded to School compared to only 42 on Wednesday! Some parents even commented about the difference in traffic congestion in Marlton Crescent! The EAG have introduced this as a regular fortnightly event not only to reduce both pollution and traffic congestion but also to ensure children are having an active and healthy start and finish to their School day.
Thursday’s are officially a rubbish free lunch day in the Junior School.
We are lucky enough to already have two established kitchen gardens which the Junior School will all now help nourish as September 2012 will see the reintroduction of each class composting in their own class buckets, all scraps going to a centrally located JS bin
This year the Year 2’s evaluated their lunch boxes to determine how much waste was being created by their daily lunches. This unit was supplemented by an outing to CERES – The Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies where there were several hands on experiences to explain the waste cycle and ways to avoid sending any rubbish to the landfill.
This year the school introduced an option for science classes with a specialised focus for year 10s. One of these classes is investigating the Carbon Cycle and looking at broader ways they can offset their emissions. After a trip to the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens, students will work to offset emissions from their own personal electronic devices by raising money to subsidise the planting of trees by farmers in East Timor.
There is an ongoing collection of stationary and books being collected to send to students in East Timor.
2012 enjoyed two Senior School Assemblies with guest presenters addressing ways in which youth can engage actively to promote a cleaner environment. We were lucky to hear all about the current work at the Australian Conservation Foundation as well as what the work the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.
Some of the more mundane sustainability projects that have been going on this year are;
A data collection process for the school’s waste and utility bills has been implemented and is being maintained so that all the data is being collected and entered into the software system.
The Commuting habits of our Senior Student’s and all staff members has been collected for 2012 and will be collected annually.
All cleaning supplies purchased by the school must now be certified as earth and Human friendly.
A Community Sustainability Group News page has been created on our school website and will be the formal avenue for sharing the stories of the quest for better and official sustainability practices here at St Michaels.
This is a private group. To join you must be a registered site member and request group membership.
NEWS, PROJECTS AND RESOURCES
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