A big part of the schools journey in being sustainable has been to manage and sort out waste so it doesn’t end up in land fill. Though we continue to re-think, re-use and reduce our paper waste, we have moved into other whole school projects to be more eco friendly.
We use water collection buckets around the school drink taps. The water collected is used for our varied native and indigenous garden beds. The many garden spaces in the school are used by children during play and times for reflective activities. The gardens have been designed and maintained to promote native species to return and remain in the school grounds. Similarly they are also a tranquil and important message to the wider community about the importance of green spaces to health and wellbeing. Our reflective gardens also contain furniture that is made from recycled products and inspires the children to re-think and re-use. St Kevin’s has joined the Vic Sustainable School’s Program inspired by a whole school excursion to the CERES Farm. Since the excursion Lorna (our Sustainable Schools mentor and support), has guided the school on its way to becoming a five star Sustainable School.
The school has established an ECOHERO Team to lead our sustainable schools program. Students gather data about our waste and record our utilities expenses on an interactive website set up by the Victorian Sustainable Schools Organisation.
The school promotes the education of students and the wider community through nude food, paper recycling, native tree planting days and whole school Green Day celebration activities. Our school has also been involved in replanting schemes around the municipality – particularly Westifold’s Park.
Our commitment to environment education is embedded in the choices we make for the school and particularly the choices we encourage the children and families to make to lead a more sustainable life. We encourage children to buy eco friendly products to use and consume at school such as component lunchboxes. These lunchboxes encourage children to bring food with less packaging – therefore less waste. We are also sourcing eco friendly products such as stainless steel drink bottles, so children drink from less environmentally harmful containers. School administration endeavours to order products for the school that are eco-friendly, such as recycled paper and sustainable / environmentally made coffee products for the staffroom. At St Kevin’s we believe that the environment is a gift we should cherish and look after as stewards of God’s creation. When we look after our environment we outwardly express to others our commitment to walk humbly with our God.
