Boorowa Community Landcare Group
The Boorowa Central School recently participated in a 6 month project which partnered with NSW Health, the Boorowa Landcare Group, Tilt Renewables, Bunnings Young and NSW Cancer Council to create a welcoming, shaded, biodiverse and productive playground for their students to enjoy and learn from, now and in the future.
The project began when the local Health Promotion Officer, Barb Manwaring approached the Principal Graham Jones and Deputy Principal Christine Hawkins to discuss how best to increase the opportunity for physical activity in outdoor school settings, in a rapidly changing climate and with increasing temperatures. The discussions became the basis of an amazing project that grew and evolved to develop a new landscape for the playground of the school.
The first goal of the project developed to increase the opportunity for physical activity and leisure activities in the playground through the provision of increased shaded and protected areas for students in increasingly warm temperatures. Shade trees were sponsored by NSW Health and Bunnings Young and were planted in exposed areas of the school and around the infants play equipment on the Western side of the playground.
The Principal Graham Jones and Deputy Christine Hawkins then wished to establish an interactive and productive vegetable, fruit and bush tucker garden for students in the school to experience and enjoy. The goal was for the students and canteen to utilize produce from the garden. The purchased fruit trees were sponsored by NSW Health and Bunnings Young and include an apple, cherry, blood orange and apricot tree.
As the project grew exponentially with sponsorship and ideas a third goal emerged, which was to create two protected biodiversity corridors on the school grounds to attract pollinators and wildlife to the playground and to provide shelter and educational opportunities for students. The corridors infrastructure and the purchase of several hundred identified local pollinating shrubs was sponsored by Tilt Renewables, Rye Park.
The project culminated in an amazing and interactive tree planting and educational afternoon for all the students at the school last Friday. The corridors were planted by both infants, primary and high school students and at the conclusion of the project each student and teacher at the school was gifted a take home shrub to plant in their home by the Boorowa Landcare Group.
Linda Cavanagh and Tom Reid of the Boorowa Landcare were very pleased with the corridors being established in the playground and with the great success of the afternoon. “Thanks to NSW Health for including Boorowa Landcare & Local Land Services and linking together a great partnership of education, health & environment, which are all inter-connected in our community. We look forward to being part of many more Boorowa Central School projects in the future.”
Both the Principal Graham Jones and Deputy Principal Christine Hawkins were also very pleased with the outcome and success of the project.
“We’d like to thank Barb Manwaring and NSW Health for leading the project and the hard work of sourcing additional sponsors to increase the scope of the Healthy Playgrounds project. We would also like to thank the sponsors themselves NSW Health, Tilt Renewables, Bunnings Young and Boorowa Landcare and Local Services for their financial support in the purchasing of trees and infrastructure for the project. Finally, we would like to thank Linda and Tom of the Boorowa Landcare Group for their ongoing involvement and advice in the tree planting afternoon and to our staff who took on additional duties administratively to see it come to fruition.”
“We can see the spaces already feel different with the additional trees and will only continue to become more inviting as they continue to establish themselves. We have particularly enjoyed seeing the students involved and enthusiastic both in the afternoon of planting but also in taking home their own shrub ready to plant and support biodiversity in our local area. The Healthy Playgrounds Project has developed some great and partnerships and has certainly improved our playground for the future.
