Ciaran Ernst-Russell talks citizen science, bush adventures, and having a crack
How Hawker College’s Gaia Club is giving fast fashion the boot
School Strike for Climate organiser Aoibhinn Crimmins on action, opportunity and hope
Matilda Ross shares her advice on sustainability advocacy at school
Protecting our natural environment through youth-led citizen science
Making sustainability a way of life at Radford College
A conversation with Chris Hubbard, member of the Climate Change and COP28 Youth Advisory Group
Isaak Brown says there’s no time like the present to step up for the environment
Looking ahead with the Canberra College Sustainability Action Group
Worming our way out of landfill
When we think of harmful rubbish heading to landfill, many of us think of plastic, paper and textiles. However, a significant volume of food scraps and other organic rubbish goes to landfill every day, and its impact may be more than you think. The anaerobic conditions in landfill lead to a release of methane, a gas which is more than 20 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.
Seeking to divert this waste and put it to a better use is Global Worming, a Canberran organic waste management business established by Cid Riley in 2004. For over 19 years, Global Worming has provided bins to clients for the collection of organic waste such as food scraps, coffee grinds, teabags and paper towels. All the food waste collected is fed to worms — a process known as vermicomposting. This method produces one of the best-known organic fertilisers.
Currently, Global Worming collects organic waste from over 50 clients including federal government departments, schools and cafes, with many clients staying with them for more than 10 years. The business also manages organic waste on-site for over 20 clients, which involves setting up and operating large worm farms at the client’s location.
Before the pandemic, Global Worming was diverting well over 300 tonnes of food waste per year from landfill to the worm farms. While food waste collections fell significantly due to lockdowns and work/study from home orders, Global Worming is now back to collecting around 200 tonnes per year. In the last 10 years, well over 2000 tonnes of food waste have been diverted from landfill by Global Worming.
Global Worming’s farming system
The main operation of Global Worming is over 20 commercial worm farms at four sites, including properties at Dairy Flat, Fairburn and the Canberra Airport. Each of these farms contains at least 50kgs of worms — a total of over 200,000 worms.
A worm can consume over half its body weight every day and each farm can go through at least 250kgs of food scraps each week.
The worms produce an excellent fertiliser that is rich in nutrients and beneficial microbes. Global Worming sells this fertiliser, along with worms, vermicast (worm manure) and commercial scale worm farms.
On-site management of organic waste
Global Worming also operates worm farms on the site of the client. The worm farms are built to handle all food waste produced on-site, keeping it out of the general waste stream with the extra bonus of having ‘Zero Waste Miles’. Global Worming staff are on-site at least once per week to feed the worms, and the outputs from the worm farm are shared with the client.
Currently, Global Worming has 22 clients in Canberra with on-site worm farms, including 18 schools. School worm farms are usually 6–9m long and each farm consumes over 100kgs of food waste every week (over 4 tonnes across the 40-week school year). Staff from Global Worming also regularly demonstrate worm farming with the students from the school.
Next steps
Global Worming’s goals are to expand in all aspects, particularly product distribution and getting worm farms on schools. If the majority of schools in Canberra were managing their food waste on-site using the Global Worming system, more than 400 tonnes of food waste would be diverted from landfill every year. That’s a lot of saved methane!
We are the next generation caring for the environment
At North Ainslie Primary School, students are encouraged to connect to and care for nature. The school was awarded the 2021 Junior Landcare Team Award for its efforts in this space, which include a range of projects and programs relating to sustainability education, green space regeneration and gang-gang cockatoo conservation.
Sustainability education
The school runs an educational program called Personal and Community Health, which focuses on sustainability and gardening to teach students about caring for the environment. Students have the opportunity to:
- participate in sustainability and garden lessons in the school veggie garden
- engage in community initiatives such as Birdlife Australia’s gang-gang project
- support student-led initiatives such as the Green Team and Waste Warriors
- participate in the Garden Club run by the Green Team
- undertake sustainable practices such as composting and recycling soft plastic waste, and
- celebrate important days such as National Tree Day and World Bee Day.
Green space regeneration
One project undertaken recently was the regeneration of a large section of the school grounds. This project transformed a previously bare and dusty oval into a beautiful naturescape with a dry creek bed, sand and mud pit, four natural turfed playing fields, more than 50 trees and hundreds of local native plants. It also has an extensive network of water infiltration trenches. The project was a collaboration between local landscape designers, experts in water smart urban design, play experts, students, staff, parents, and local Indigenous leaders.
The project is now complete, and the students can enjoy connecting to nature daily during free play or class time. It is a beautiful space that can also be enjoyed by people in the neighbourhood outside school hours.
Gang-gang project
The gang-gang project is another key environmental initiative with which North Ainslie Primary School is involved. This is an online course run through Birdlife Australia – Birds in Schools Project. Birds in Schools engages students in the scientific process through investigation and monitoring the birds and habitat of their school grounds. Students use their own observational skills and ideas to develop and implement action plans to help their local bird life. Action plans may include planting native plants, installing nest boxes or bird baths, or delivering education campaigns in their school or local neighbourhood.
Approximately 160 students from Years 3 and 4 participated in the project in 2022. As a result of their involvement, students:
- developed a greater awareness of local plant species and how these contribute to a healthy habitat for birds
- learnt about the importance of providing a variety of plants in a garden or urban space, including ground cover, an understorey and a tree canopy
- learnt about natural food sources for birds, with a particular focus on gang-gangs
- learnt about the value of old trees and the importance of hollows. They also watched the secret life of birds and learnt about 3D printing tree hollows!
- learnt about some of the reasons that gang-gangs are a threatened species such as habitat loss due to bushfires and clearing
- undertook a bird survey to identify the presence of birds on their redeveloped oval space and learnt the names of other bird species, and
- designed what they thought would be the ultimate habitat for birds, received plants from Greening Australia and planted them in the space next to the oval redevelopment area.
Four participating students volunteered to speak to us about their involvement in the project: Victoria, Lily, Anjali and Benjamin. One of the challenges the students discussed was how to bring water into the landscape for the birds. One of the students suggested people in the neighbourhood could have bird baths in their front gardens or include a bird bath fixed in the ground as part of their outdoor area. The students also spoke about the need for bird boxes, as tree hollows can take up to 200 years to form and birds need somewhere to live in the meantime. Overall, the gang-gang project gave students practical experience in thinking about how to create a bird-friendly habitat right on their school grounds.
All of these initiatives run by the school have positive outcomes for students and the future of Landcare. Ensuring students are surrounded by nature on a daily basis gives them the opportunity to develop their love for nature. By engaging youth in Landcare and sustainability projects, the school then supports the students’ natural desire to take action and care for their local environment.
“We are the next generation. It is important that all students learn how to care for the environment.”
— North Ainslie Primary School student
The next generation pitch their ideas to help Canberra thrive
SEE-Change’s Parliament of Youth on Sustainability is an event run by young people, for young people. An annual program that culminates in a one-day mock Parliament event, it is a fun, engaging and respectfully competitive student-centred initiative that gives platform to youth voices calling for action in the sustainability space.
Students are given time to research and develop proposals over terms 1 and 2 for how the Canberra region can be made more sustainable. Schools from across the ACT then come together for Parliament Presentation Day, where students act as Parliamentarians and present, discuss and debate each other’s proposals. Finalists get to pitch their proposals to Members of the ACT Legislative Assembly, and then all participants vote on a winner for each age category.
At the 2021 event, a total of 142 students representing 14 ACT schools came together with proposals to address the topic: ‘What is one action we can take to thrive on Ngunnawal Country?’
Participating students ranged from 6 to 18 years old and formed 35 teams. The top 11 voted teams advanced to the final round, pitching their proposals to all participating students and a panel of MLAs including Minister Yvette Berry (ALP), Minister Chris Steel (ALP), Minister Rebecca Vassarotti (ACT Greens), Minister Shane Rattenbury (ACT Greens) and Shadow Minister Leanne Castley (Canberra Liberals). Four teams were crowned victorious, with a further two proposals selected as recipients of the ‘Ready for Action’ award, funded by the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate within ACT Government. These teams worked with SEE-Change in the months following the event to bring their proposals to life.
Over the course of the event, students identified a diverse array of sustainability issues in the ACT. Key themes included:
- waste — including food waste, plastic waste, recycled waste and waste labels (13 proposals)
- land conservation — including tree planting, bush regeneration and community gardens (8 proposals), and
- animals — including supporting bee populations, reducing meat consumption and addressing pests (6 proposals).
Common strategies for addressing sustainability issues included:
- education and community engagement programs — including community campaigns, competitions, and education (including extending sustainability programs in schools)
- government support and incentives for schools and households to compost, recycle and reduce waste
- establishing new child-focussed apps — including to support native flora/fauna education, and waste distribution, and
- incentives for low-emissions transport — including subsidies for electric vehicles, using public transport and active transport.
Feedback from the event was overwhelmingly positive — almost 100 per cent of participants said they would participate again, and 92 per cent of students gave the event a rating of 8/10 or higher. The program also significantly increased students’ knowledge of and motivation to learn more about environmental issues, inspiring many to make personal changes to be more sustainable in their daily lives.
You can read more about the Parliament of Youth on Sustainability, including details of the 2021 student proposals, on the SEE-Change website.
Creating a ‘culture of sustainability’ at Chapman Primary School
Chapman Primary School is committed to creating a culture of sustainability among the next generation of young Canberrans. Through its innovative whole-of-school approach, Chapman Primary claimed the title of 2021 Sustainable School of the Year at the ACTsmart Sustainability Awards. From infrastructure upgrades, curriculum changes and student-led sustainability initiatives, the school has centred the environment in its campus activities and built a culture where every student, staff member, and volunteer has a role to play.
Maintaining and strengthening this culture has been embedded into all areas of campus life alongside the school’s preschool to year 6 curriculum. The 10-week kindergarten ‘Bushkids’ initiative is a highly celebrated program that fosters student connection with nature, instilling a desire to care for it from an early age. Meanwhile, lunch-time sustainability groups like the ‘Enviro Squad’, ‘Power Rangers’ and ‘Garden Gurus’ empower students to lead initiatives and contribute to an environmentally sustainable campus. The Enviro Squad promotes awareness of sustainability and sustainable waste management practices, the Power Rangers seek to reduce energy consumption by monitoring lights and computers across the campus, and the Garden Gurus maintain the school’s community garden in partnership with volunteer teachers and parents.
The school strives to increase the already large number of students walking and riding to school and is an enthusiastic supporter of Active Streets, National Ride to School Day and Walk to School Week. Promotion of waste free lunches takes place in classrooms, newsletters, and parent information sessions while food scraps are taken to the school worm farm and the castings used in the school garden. The school has upgraded its infrastructure with new bike racks, energy efficient LED lighting and installed double glazing in some windows, while several outdoor spaces have been built within school grounds to help to reduce the school’s energy consumption.
All staff have roles or responsibilities — whether it’s leading a student sustainability group or simply being aware of ways to reduce classroom waste. In 2021, all Chapman Primary staff attended a professional development day at Birrigai Outdoor School. Drawing on inspiration from the traditional custodians of the ACT, the Ngunnawal people, staff renewed their commitment to take climate action and strengthen their approach to sustainability.