ROTARY CLUB of WEST WOLLONGONG and WARRAWONG PUBLIC SCHOOL
The Rotary Club of West Wollongong is helping Warrawong Public School to transform dilapidated garden areas in the main playground, which are currently out-of-bounds, into creative ‘Nature Play’ spaces. These areas were becoming a hazard. They were full of weeds with crumbling, rotting unsafe edging in the middle of the central supervised playground area. Parents, teachers and students had all expressed the desire to make these areas functional and beautiful spaces for nature-based play initiative.
Warrawong Primary School has engaged a permaculture teacher, Ben Andersen, 2 days per week. He is managing the development, implementation, utilisation and maintenance of this project.
All students have been taking part in the research and design of the gardens as part of their science and environmental classes. They have been working hard measuring, making models and with the help of comments from the community and teachers, choosing the most popular ideas for the play area. Both the school and the Rotary Club are excited about transforming the areas with sandstone edging, paved pathways, climbing areas, shaded seating, log stepping stones, a multipurpose raised platform, a toy car play zone and a reconciliation garden to acknowledge their large indigenous student cohort and the indigenous heritage of the area. The garden areas will be established and maintained using Permaculture principles.
The students are clearly enjoying the physical and educational activity of weeding, pruning, shovelling and carting mulch and soil.
The Rotary Club of West Wollongong is assisting in the physical construction of the 3 sections
Comments such as “It was a delight to see the excitement and fun the children were having whilst learning about environmentally friendly gardening and participating physically in changing an unusable eyesore into a beautiful play area”
The development of these new areas will meet a much sought after need within the school.