The Green Team
Matraville Sports High School is new on its journey toward becoming a sustainable school. We have decided to make sustainability a high priority and embed it across the curriculum for the benefit of the planet’s health and our student’s future.
2023 marks the first time in Matraville Sports High history that we have had an official Green Team! Two Green Team Leaders were inducted into the senior school leadership team and were awarded their badges at assembly alongside the School Captain and Vice Captains.
We have also been busy collaborating with the University of NSW, Randwick Council and Indigi Grow-a local native nursery, in designing plans to build an edible food garden for students in the Inclusive Learning Centre (ILC). This has been financed through the Sustainable Schools Grant, which we were one of few schools that were successful in winning $30,000.
M.S.H.S celebrated National Tree Day to hold a whole school tree planting event. We invited Aboriginal Elders to bless the trees whilst indigenous students played the didgeridoo, in honor of giving back to Country. Celebrities attended our event such as Costa the TV gardener, Adamm Goodes- former Sydney Swan’s footballer and Planet Ark to witness the mass tree planting.
The Green Team also ran a soil audit to see whether our school’s soil sustained other ecosystems. Students calculated a low biodiversity score in some areas of our school and identified an urgent need to improve it.
As a result of the low biodiversity score identified through the soil audit, the Green Team, with the help of its teachers, applied for and won a $5,00 grant from Randwick Council. We created a Native Garden with this money. We have now noticed an influx of insects, worms, butterflies and birds in this once dead area.
The year 7’s completed a waste management pilot facilitated by a staff member of the EEC. This allowed M.S.H.S to introduce strategies to reduce its contribution to landfill waste.
The ILC green Team students started a Return and Earn program. We worked closely with a member of the Environmental Educational Center to help us with this. In our first week we raised $97! Future funds will go towards making our school more sustainable.
Our senior Green Team leaders attended an Environmental leadership workshop at Taronga Zoo were they presented a Pecha Kucha (PowerPoint/Presentation/video) to 18 schools informing them of our schools' sustainable achievements. They will also be running a workshop for primary school children at the Coal Loder Sustainable Center, demonstrating sustainable practices.
In our recent endeavor, our school has embarked on a path to becoming an “Eco School” through the Eco Schools Program.
We are working toward attaining the Eco School accreditation. Once achieved, we will be awarded a Green Flag which is an international award given to schools who are recognised to have made significant progress towards environmental sustainability, which is recognised by UNESCO.
ILC Green Team students
IndigiGrow
Sydney-based Aboriginal non-profit organisation IndigiGrow has opened a new wholesale native plant nursery on our school grounds, that will give it room to grow its business and provide work experience for school students and apprenticeships for Aboriginal youth.
IndigiGrow, specialises in producing native plants, including bush tucker and species from the critically endangered Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub.
The new wholesale nursery will supply native plants to tradespeople, government gardeners and horticulturalists, garden designers, landscape architects and corporate clients as well as other nurseries. The nursery will also open to the public on special occasions.
It aims to empower, educate and engage Indigenous youth in culture, and connection to Country and teaches them how to care for Country, helping them make positive choices for the future.
Environmental Grant
Matraville was one of 5 schools to be the recipients of Randwick City’s Environmental Grants for Schools.
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.