Have your gardens grown a little stale? Are your sports fields looking somewhat worse for wear? Could your landscaping be working harder in educational value? There’s no reason why any landscaped space in your school can’t tick off multiple goals for you. All it takes is a little creativity and smart planning.
Theme your space
Themed gardens are a wonderful way to help students learn. Native gardens to help students learn about our local flora and fauna, a bush tucker garden to demonstrate the connection between the environment and food, or an exotic garden that teaches students about lands abroad.
Pair these together and you have the perfect opportunity for students to have some fun on a nature scavenger hunt or other outdoor learning activities.
Get your hands dirty
Provide students with the opportunity to get involved. Whether you build a veggie garden, install raised planters, or create a space where youngsters can assist with planting blooms, this is a beneficial way to engage students and provide them with firsthand experience in the garden.
It’s relevant, it provides students with a sense of ownership, and encourages them to develop a connection with nature. And by properly assigning an area for these activities, it takes the hassle out of finding a random space to do it later on.
A sustainable garden
More than ever, it is important we are teaching students the value of looking after our planet. Gardens are a key way to do this. By teaching sustainability in the garden, students are developing key life skills. It might even inspire them to be our future environmental leaders.
How do you do it? Think gardens created completely with recycled materials, reusing resources that would be otherwise wasted, installing water harvesting elements, and aiming to do all this with zero waste.
Culturally significant yarning circles
Yarning circles have been used within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures for centuries as a method of building respectful relationships and having a safe space for honest conversations.
What a wonderful way for students to gather in an outdoor space and learn the beauty of communicating without judgement, while also embracing an important tradition of our First Nations People.
Gardens to appeal to the senses
We’re big advocates for sensory gardens for people of all ages and abilities. Why? They promote outdoor learning, but they’re also a terrific way to stimulate the senses, they’re therapeutic, they nurture a deeper connection with nature, and they encourage a sense of adventure.
Fill your garden with plants that will appeal to all the senses… a multitude of colours, scents, textures, even sounds. We help you create these spaces while considering aspects like who will be using the garden, correct plant choice, how much space you have available and more.
Give your sports turf a renovation
How well are your sports fields performing? Are they providing students with the surface they need to excel in the sport of their choice? Have they become a safety issue with compacted soil and trip hazards? If your sports fields are no longer a safe space to play and learn, they aren’t serving their purpose.
It might be time for a sports field renovation. The long-term benefits outweigh any short-term pain. Think less money spent on quick fixes, a safer surface, and most importantly, happy students. Here’s how we did it at Brothers Rugby Club.
Take a copy with you
Fill in your details to save a copy for later
