The recipients of Randwick City’s Environmental Grants for Schools were announced on Wednesday 2 November 2022, with five local schools each set to receive $5,000 in funding.
Randwick Mayor Dylan Parker congratulated the recipients, including Claremont College, Kensington Public School, Maroubra Junction Public School, Matraville Sports High School and Randwick Public School.
“These schools have come up with a range of great projects that help protect the environment and empower students to make a difference to their school and local community,” Mayor Parker said.
The projects granted in this year’s round of funding include new green spaces, edible gardens, native gardens, a native planting initiative and an outdoor wellbeing hub. These projects aim to grow student and community engagement, increase biodiversity, encourage sustainable living practices and support environmental education.
“This funding extends the reach of Council’s Environment Strategy and supports education around sustainability for students and families in their local communities,” said Mayor Parker
Individual school projects are listed below:
| School | Project |
|---|---|
| Claremont College | Create an edible garden, spread over two parts of the school and a native garden space in multiple locations around the school using native plants sourced from a local nursery. |
| Kensington Public School | Create an outdoor teaching space – ‘Outdoor Wellbeing Hub’ and recreation area in a natural setting that achieves the environmental and social outcomes relevant to the local school community. The area will feature a timber deck-style amphitheatre to accommodate a class of 30 students, cubby houses/quiet nooks, a raised deck with built-in sandpit and sunken net hammocks within the deck. |
| Maroubra Junction Public School | Project 1 will connect the school community to Country through planting and nurturing native plants in the school gardens, supporting the local ecosystem. Project 2 will introduce a soft plastics recycling program, including dedicated bins around the school and engaging a soft plastics recycling company to collect the soft plastics on a regular basis as necessary. |
| Matraville Sports High School | A native planting project will help the student Sustainability Committee utilise ten neglected pre-existing large empty garden areas on the other side of the school as a vehicle of environmental change. Students will learn to slow down climate change by planting native drought tolerant and heat resistant plants to support diverse and beneficial insect habitats, use sustainable gardening methods and conserve water through practices such as plant selection, mulching, composting and maintaining soil health. |
| Randwick Public School | This project will regenerate an area in the school grounds that is rundown and create a space for outdoor nature play. By reusing existing materials, the project will demonstrate how green space can be recreated in a small urban environment through reuse of existing materials. |
Awarded each year, the Environmental Grants for Schools are available to registered NSW schools in the Randwick City Council Local Government Area. Applicants are required to demonstrate that the projects will enhance environmental learnings within the school, are supported across the school community, and are linked to the school curriculum.
The Environmental Grants for Schools program is funded by Randwick Council’s Sustaining Our City environmental levy.
For more information about the Environmental Grants for Schools program, visit our website.
