The brand new campus of Meadows PS opened in 2010 as two merged schools came together- Meadowbank PS and Campmeadows PS.

Meadowbank was already a five star sustainable school before the merger with around 200 students.

As a new school, Meadows PS, with a new student population of around 300, had to begin the program again and incorporate sustainable practises across the whole school and kindergarten.

To start our journey, Meadows PS opened the new Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program in Term 3 2011. Students in grades 3-6 had weekly kitchen and garden lessons incorporating the philosophy of Stephanie Alexander – grow, harvest, cook, share.

The staff began to put into practise many eco-friendly processes, such as introducing Green Teams to sort out waste so it didn’t end up in landfill.

Jump ahead to 2019, Meadows is on track to receive its first star for Core.

This year nearly 50 students volunteered for the Green Teams in grades 3-6, with some eager grade 2 children coming on board from time to time.

Because of the huge numbers this year we divided up the duties of the green teams- gr 5/6’s collecting and sorting the bins for recycled products and paper.

The grade 3/ 4’s collecting daily compost from all grades, kindergarten, staffroom and taking it to the big compost bins and feed the 6 worm farms. They also collect and bottle the worm juice. Some Staff members also bring in their food scraps and students compost them. This group also run the Rubbish Free Lunches program and hand out an award at assemblies.

Some of these children have been enthusiastic about taking on leadership roles in this area. e.g. they often get up in front of the school ,at assembly, to talk about the rubbish they see around the school or to talk about the need to turn taps off.

A new group this year is the Bird Club with students from grades 3-6. The students want to help bring more native species to the school with designing and making bird nesting boxes ,bird baths and bee hotels that will be placed around the Community Garden.

Bird identification is a high priority for this group and each student has a ‘Birds of Hume’ book, compliments of the Biodiversity Officer from Hume Council, with photos of birds in the area for easy identification. Students will undertake a bird count in October this year.

A frog bog to entice the Growling Grass Frog, (once a native species to the area) has also been planned.

The school promotes the education of students and the wider community through nude food, paper recycling, whole school native tree planting days and whole school celebration activities with the Design and Sustainability Expo yearly in term 3.

This expo highlights student’s learnings through the curriculum, with their designs on display. Parents also attend workshops that promote recipes for rubbish free lunches and energy saving tips.

Our school has also been involved in wider community replanting schemes around the municipality – particularly at Jack Roper Reserve and plantings at the Westgate Park.

Our commitment to environment education is embedded in the curriculum and in the choices we make for the school. We encourage the children and families to make and lead a more sustainable life. We encourage children to buy eco-friendly products to use and consume at school, such as lunchboxes which require less packaging – therefore less waste.

Other areas we highlight are:

• Energy saving – turning off classroom lights and heaters – the Green Team made signs to put on each light switch to remind others to turn off lights and heaters.
• Water – these children often turn off taps or highlight dripping taps to our maintenance man. The group is responsible for including a water saving tip in the school newsletter.

Other students gather data about our waste, energy, and water and record these utilities expenses on an interactive website set up by ResourceSmart.

A new concept this year includes ‘going green’ at our community events which also highlights the recycling message. The annual Iftar dinner recycled and reused many of our waste products and leftover food was composted.