In alignment with our philosophy and inspired by the NAIDOC Week Theme 2021, “Heal Country”, we included a sustainability action to our Centre’s Quality Improvement Plan in 2021-2022. Our goal was to reflect on our practices and procedures to ensure that they are sustainable and as environmentally friendly as possible. We wanted our efforts to lead to learning for children, educators and for our Community. (Relates to Quality Areas 3.2.3, 6.2.3, 7.1.1)

As we prepare to retire this action from our Quality Improvement Plan, Ully, our Centre’s Sustainability Officer, shared her insights about what we achieved and what is next for us on our continuing sustainability journey.

What are some of the highlights of what we achieved together?

We had a great achievement of being able to cut down from 2 red bins to one for the whole Centre. It is wonderful that we are reducing and recycling our waste considerably as a Centre.
Educators did a lot of reflecting about the materials we used during the day and thought about ways we could reduce our waste. For example, we switched from fabric bibs and table cloths to wipeable tablecloths and silicone bibs.
We also provided more resources for play and books to learn more about sustainability.
We managed to sustain a worm farm together through one of the hottest summers we can remember! We also had a worm farms donated from several families that made it easier for us to care for our worms and keep them alive.
We created a partnership with the Inglewood Mount Lawley Community garden to process our compost. We’ve also established a few of our own compost bins at the Centre that children can contribute to and observe and help airing it with our special compost airer.
We have managed to sustain our bush tucker plants and engaged in professional learning around bush tucker. Children have learned that our Geraldton wax plants are edible and they’re quite excited about this! We also had our first harvest of oranges after taking special care of our orange tree in the Kindy garden.
We made a relationship with Eco Revolution on Beaufort Street where we used their Recycling Station.
In partnership with Edith Cowan University, our early childhood teachers participated in a research project about Child Soil relations. This led to meaningful conversations with children about the life in soil and why it is important to care for it.
Our Centre has added solar panels to the building, thanks to a grant supported by Simon Millman. Our next step is sourcing hand driers to reduce our paper towel waste in the Kindy 1 bathroom.
Old materials have been given new life in our educational programs by re-using them for a new purpose. Unused suitcases became a very exciting way to transport materials from place to place and for children to engage in travel role-play together.

What learning do you think the children took away from our actions about how we treat our planet?

In our gardening efforts, children became very interested in this as they were interested in eating things that they grew themselves and were also interested in the creatures that they could find in the garden.
We can see that children are engaging in recycling actions but are still learning what the word recycling means and that we’re doing “recycling.”
Through our soil research, children explored the kinds of soil where they could find life and moisture, a feature they found was very important in “happy soil.” They also shared their ideas about how we can care for soil and the creatures who live in it.

Planting seedlings with Ully, our Sustainability Officer

What are we planning in the future?

We have been having trouble sustaining our gardens and are considering the idea of using wicking beds. We are hosting an incursion in August to help us learn about how to create and care for wicking beds with the children.
Educators are invited to add to our Sustainability wall, tracking the action that we take to support this learning about being more sustainable and taking care of the planet. We hope that working together on this will empower educators to share and reflect on the sustainable actions that they’re taking in their programs with the children.
Ully will continue in her role as sustainability officer, helping our Centre to plan for learning and improvement with sustainable practices. Thank you for all your hard work to help us learn, Ully!

08 August 2022

As we prepare to retire this action from our Quality Improvement Plan, Ully, our Centre’s Sustainability Officer, shared her insights about what we achieved and what is next for us on our continuing sustainability journey.

What are some of the highlights of what we achieved together?

We had a great achievement of being able to cut down from 2 red bins to one for the whole Centre. It is wonderful that we are reducing and recycling our waste considerably as a Centre.

Educators did a lot of reflecting about the materials we used during the day and thought about ways we could reduce our waste. For example, we switched from fabric bibs and table cloths to wipeable tablecloths and silicone bibs.

We also provided more resources for play and books to learn more about sustainability.

We managed to sustain a worm farm together through one of the hottest summers we can remember! We also had a worm farms donated from several families that made it easier for us to care for our worms and keep them alive.

We created a partnership with the Inglewood Mount Lawley Community garden to process our compost. We’ve also established a few of our own compost bins at the Centre that children can contribute to and observe and help airing it with our special compost airer.

We made a relationship with Eco Revolution on Beaufort Street where we used their Recycling Station.

In partnership with Edith Cowan University, our early childhood teachers participated in a research project about Child Soil relations. This led to meaningful conversations with children about the life in soil and why it is important to care for it.

Our Centre has added solar panels to the building, thanks to a grant supported by Simon Millman. Our next step is sourcing hand driers to reduce our paper towel waste in the Kindy 1 bathroom.

Old materials have been given new life in our educational programs by re-using them for a new purpose. Unused suitcases became a very exciting way to transport materials from place to place and for children to engage in travel role-play together.

What learning do you think the children took away from our actions about how we treat our planet?

In our gardening efforts, children became very interested in this as they were interested in eating things that they grew themselves and were also interested in the creatures that they could find in the garden.

We can see that children are engaging in recycling actions but are still learning what the word recycling means and that we’re doing “recycling.”

Through our soil research, children explored the kinds of soil where they could find life and moisture, a feature they found was very important in “happy soil.” They also shared their ideas about how we can care for soil and the creatures who live in it.

What are we planning in the future?

We have been having trouble sustaining our gardens and are considering the idea of using wicking beds. We are hosting an incursion in August to help us learn about how to create and care for wicking beds with the children.

Ully will continue in her role as sustainability officer, helping our Centre to plan for learning and improvement with sustainable practices. Thank you for all your hard work to help us learn, Ully!