2008 Port Phillip and Western Port Landcare Awards
Balnarring Primary School on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula has again taken out the Young People Caring for Land category in the 2008 Port Phillip and Western Port Landcare Awards, held on Saturday at Zinc in Federation Square.
The school beat three other schools in the region to take the honours. Heather Goddard, is Balnarring Primary’s Sustainability Coordinator and she accepted the award on Saturday on behalf of the school.
“My real job is Literacy Coordinator but my passion is sustainability and I have been involved in development of wetlands since it began in 1993.
“The wetlands really pre date the public’s focus on sustainability and the environment to some degree and we’ve been really lucky, not only being given access to the land where the wetlands now stand but also getting the support of a great group of parents who helped us build it.
“The original piece of land was farmland and when we stared it had two little strands of swamp paperbark on it, but the rest was pasture. I remember looking longingly out the staffroom window and saying something like “wouldn’t it be great if we had a wetlands there” and from that original thought, the concept grew,” Goddard explained.
For the current school population there are a number of students for whom the wetlands have been always there, but it is not taken for granted, but rather it is weaved into the curriculum.
“The highlight for the kids is going down there with the science teacher and dip netting. They get tadpoles, leeches, dragon fly larvae, water mites and diving beetles and then can release them back into the wetland. It gives them a sense of what they really find in nature and what an ecosystem means,” Goddard explained.
“The wetlands and the actions we take within the school are about educating the community through our kids, but the prime motivation is the kids. We like to think that they have the environmental skills and knowledge to effect the world they grow up in.”
Goddard says the children will share in the success of the awards at school assembly this week. She expects that children and community will be proud of their achievements.
As a winner within the Port Phillip and Western Port Landcare Awards, Balnarring Primary will go on to be nominated for the 2009 Victorian Landcare Awards.
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