| The Corio Campus of
Geelong Grammar encompasses both the middle and Senior Schools,
boarders and day pupils and is over 200 hectares in size.
The school aims for balance and versatility in all of their
pupils and with this in mind joined the Sustainable Schools
Initiative in 2004. The Senior school has taken the SSI mission
on board and in early September 2006 achieved five star accreditation.
At Geelong Grammar there has been a focus on a particular
aspect of their environment to which they all as community
members can make a positive or negative contribution. They
started with all teaching staff from all campuses, working
in Learning Area groups, developing goals towards which they
should work in each of the modules. In various ways they have
worked towards these goals over the last few years. There
have been a number of environmental initiatives in the past
but the senior campus Director of Planning Jon Apted said
“Sustainable Schools has provided a framework for action
and the modules have given the focus and the milestones which
we have been able to share and celebrate. It has been rewarding
to have the recognition of steady progress in environmental
improvement that, at times, has taken determination to push
through barriers to completion.”
 It
has been relatively easy for Geelong Grammar to incorporate
environmental education in the Primary School and Middle School
curricula, and it is already part of the Senior School curriculum
in some subjects. The school have a major focus on the Limeburners’
Bay, which is adjacent to the School grounds, in Year 7. Students
do a lengthy study which involves all of their academic subjects
and a major presentation to students, staff and parents. In
some Year 10 subjects there has been the opportunity to make
some changes in the Science curriculum in particular. However,
as they have an extended day length in the Senior School whereby
Day-boarders (25% of the Senior School population) attend
from 8.20am to 8.30pm, eating lunch and dinner with the Boarders
(75% of the Senior School population) the broader co-curriculum
of after school Activities allows for further exposure to
environmental education.
With the vast majority of the teaching staff living on campus
it means that activities can extend into the weekends and
involve the whole community. It has not been possible to change
the curriculum markedly in late Secondary programme though
opportunities have been taken where possible, particularly
in use of examples. In Senior School the Administration, Operations
and Co-curriculum have been the main areas for action.
Geelong Grammar have very long list of things that have been
done, and when looking at this list Jon Apted said that “pleasure
and reward have come from them in very different ways.”
In some it has been the achievement of significant savings
in resource use or obvious impact on the environment, in others
it has been the level of engagement of the whole community,
and in others again it has been to do with the effectiveness
of the awareness raising associated with a particular project,
often with the effectiveness of student initiatives and action.
In some it has been a combination of all three.
During the schools time with the SSI they have undertaken
many and varied activities, some of which are completed while
others are ongoing, some of these are:
• Establishment of a recycling system across the community
and then the merging of it with the highly successful system
run by the City of Greater Geelong.
• Sustainability Committee representatives meeting with
the contract caterers and convincing them to change from using
plastic disposable materials to using biodegradable materials
made of corn starch and chalk, on those few occasions when
we use disposable cutlery, plates and cups.
• Involving 200 students in the Good Friday Sesquicentenary
Indigenous Plantation project.
• Mad Mulching Day where free mulch was distributed
to staff residences and boarding houses so that all garden
beds on the Corio campus could have a good layer of mulch.
• Barwon Water’s Student Forum where some Year
10 students gave advice to Barwon Water as to what sort of
advertising would appeal to adolescents in terms of saving
water consumption.
 •
Clean Up Corio has been conducted many times with Senior School
and Middle School students. Based on the Clean Up Australia
campaign the whole community gets out and does a major clean
up of the school grounds, neighbouring public lands, and the
Limeburners’Bay Wetlands Reserve and foreshore areas
along Corio Bay.
• Water conservation displays and Sustainability Committee
Display tents on family Day and Sports Day promoting water
conservation.
• Conducting the Water Audit with Barwon Water and then
fitting 1500 flow regulator valves in order to reduce water
consumption.
• The 10 year old Wetlands Project which is part of
our Year 10 Service Camps programme. Around 40 students each
year have been involved in the restoration of an area on the
School property with indigenous species, setting up a secure
nature reserve.
• Conducting the Energy Audit with Utilacor. Sharing
the graphs with students and letting them see the impact of
simple measures to conserve electricity.
• Recycling of printer cartridges.
• Student initiated programme to collect batteries across
the campus for recycling.
• The Student Recycled Fashion Show.
• Establishment of compost bins for food scraps in Middle
School. This is run by one of the junior houses for the whole
of Middle School.
• In the final Senior School assembly for term 3, 2006
a student showed the Video piece that she had made to enter
into the EPA’s video competition. It was warmly applauded
by 250 senior students and staff.
Geelong Grammar has many plans for the future of sustainability
in their school. The Sustainability Committee is investigating
if there might be a better way to use the large volumes of
kitchen wastes. They have investigated the possibility of
voltage reduction devices on banks of fluorescent lights and
have installed a number of solar powered street lights across
the campus. The School is also replacing its cypress plantations
over a ten year period. The cypresses are old and in severe
decline, particularly suffering from Seridium fungus infection.
These are being replaced with many native plantations and
some mixed cedar species to achieve a similar appearance (heritage
overlay) to the cypress plantations.
The school have also applied for funding assistance with
putting subsurface irrigation on another large area of sports
playing fields which will help conserve more water. The Year
Ten’s have a Wetlands and Landcare camp that will take
place again in term 4 as will the Wetlands/Landcare Activity
they take part in on Tuesday afternoons. Very recently the
school have confirmed their involvement with Shell and Greening
Australia to work in partnership to provide educational opportunities
for local Primary School students, and practical assistance
with restoration of the Limeburners’ bay foreshore and
wetlands. This community link is in alignment with the Sustainable
Schools Initiative and is part of their and Shell’s
outreach into the local community. Geelong Grammar Corio is
continuously looking for ideas and opportunities in the different
module areas covered by the SSI.
More
info.
For more information please contact Geelong Grammar School
Director of Planning Jonathan Apted on (03)
5273 9316, email jona@ggs.vic.edu.au
or go to the Geelong Grammar School website at http://www.ggscorio.vic.edu.au.
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