On Thursday, 7th November 2024 Monbulk Primary school hosted the EASL ResourceSmart Schools (RSS) Progress Workshop. The school was shrouded in a light fog and gorgeous canopy. It was a beautiful setting for attendees and council representatives, already with hot drinks in hand, happily networking and excited for another inspiring workshop.
After an opening introduction from EASL facilitators, Guest speaker Joost Bakker (former student and parent of Monbulk PS), was excited to be back at his old primary school to share his learnings. Joost’s journey started with curiosity and questions and led to him designing sustainable self-sufficient houses that have featured in magazines like Vogue and Interior Design Italy. He talked about his impressive work in zero waste restaurants and the Future Food Systems project creating a self-sufficient, off-grid house that produces enough food to feed its’ occupants with zero waste. It was incredibly inspiring and highlighted the potential to support local food systems.
Joost is currently constructing Woodleigh School’s Futures Studio, a sustainable space as a curriculum attraction for students. Click on these links to see videos about their green roofs that will not only provide incredible insulation but also provide predator free habitat for butterflies and birds. Wow – a school roof can increase biodiversity! The focus of the whole build was very much sustainability – from local builders to the recyclable concrete and steel frame construction material, aquaponics, recycled furniture and straw board made in Bendigo and more all for the same price as a normal build! Joost hopes this will catalyse change and has made the building plans open source so schools across the globe can implement the structure and designs. Look out for the open day in February! There were lots of Q&As for Joost before our yummy zero waste morning tea from a local caterer.
After a presentation by Monbulk PS’s sustainability coordinators Dani and Emily we headed outside for a tour of the now sunny school grounds, led by the student environmental leaders. Their presentation focused on challenges and successes that school has experienced over the years. Many of the challenges related to the combination of major building works, covid and storms. In two years, all that hard work they’d done in sustainability since 2015 was gone. But despite staff turnover and curriculum changes they grew the program again. Fortunately, the billing data on the RSS platform showed their resource savings and demonstrated the value of RSS in terms everyone could understand.
Successes for this school are plentiful due to passion and community engagement including connecting with a local VCAL class to build a chicken enclosure and new garden beds replacing those removed during a school build. Sustainability is embedded in the curriculum in term 1 each year. This inducts new students and refreshes the students (and teachers!) about waste systems, rubbish free lunches, energy saving and other initiatives including tips in the school newsletter and information packs given to families.
The active environmental student team and sustainability captains highlight the importance of sustainability culture in the school. These students keep sustainability at the forefront of the community by presenting at assembly, doing spot classroom energy checks at lunchtime and rewarding those classrooms that have turned lights and appliances off amongst other things.
On the tour the students enthusiastically explained their three-bin system and how these are emptied. This creates agency, learning, and means it’s not all on the staff to keep these initiatives going. There were many more inspiring delights, like a closed loop composter, indigenous grasses garden, garden beds and chickens. The 5-star school certainly showcased why they’ve been awarded the ultimate achievements from the ResourceSmart Schools program.
More networking and a waste free lunch ensued before sitting down to work one-on-one with the EASL facilitators to enter actions into the RSS system, start award applications for the ResourceSmart School awards and enter bills.
It was wonderful to see so many old and new faces at the PW and we look forward to many more in the future. We thank Danielle, Emily, the environment team and captains, and Monbulk Primary School for hosting such a successful and inspiring event.
Want to host an event at your school? Contact easl@info.com.au or your local RSS facilitator