You may have noticed that the area near Mr Josh’s class, behind the deck, has transformed over the last holiday break.
Last year, our school won an NRM grant to support us in designing an Interactive Bush Tucker Garden. There have been several failed attempts at using this space for a butterfly garden and other things, so we were very excited when we won the grant as we knew this would help us transform this area.
Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students were involved in the design process and worked collaboratively with Jake Burgoyne, Shona Thompson, Paul Whibley and Sam Ryan from NRM. The area is to be used as an interactive space to teach the students and community members about native sustainability and Indigenous technology. All of the plants are native and there is a yarning circle with an area for a removable fire pit.
Our Bush Tucker garden is a peaceful place and I helped move stuff and pull out weeds.
—Elijah
It’s really fun and cool and it needs to be looked after.
—Mia
We are hoping to officially open this area soon with a ceremony at school. We are also hoping to hold the ATSI Riverhub Partnership Yarning Circle here in our Bush Tucker Garden. We are hoping that all students and community members will respect this space, especially while the plants establish, as we want to all classes to be able to use this area for learning.
I really like it. I helped pull out grass and want to put more plants in there.
—Maddison
It’s fun and we can only be in there when teachers are there.
—Mason
