Below is a project I started at Heatherton Christian College 2014-2016.
HEATHERTON CHRISTIAN COLLEGE
Growing in Christ | Striving for Excellence | Influencing the World
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Growing in Christ:
Genesis 1:29-30 "Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. Genesis 2:15 "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. " God put us in charge of the Planet, to work it and take care of it. In return, the earth gives us food, not the supermarket, or McDonalds. |
Striving for Excellence:
There is nothing more excellent than striving towards a vision that is passionately significant and life improving for the people around you. Living out the principles of permaculture produces resilient, creative, problem solving and ethically sustainable individuals who engage in community care, people care and fair share for all. |
Influencing the World:
Permaculture simply put is inspiration for sustainable living. It is world changing thinking. It means caring for our people, our planet and our resources, the way God originally intended it to be. In our modern industrial commercial world, we have moved away from the original plan. Permaculture principles and practices provides us with a vehicle for change. It is just too simple. The current world is very complicated and it need not be so. We need to step up, not back, and influence this world towards sustainability by restructuring our connections and priorities. |
HEATHERTON CHRISTIAN COLLEGE PROJECT, MELBOURNE VICTORIA:
Year 9 students attend the WASP (Wilderness Adventure Survival Program) camp yearly, followed by "The City Challenge" program where they learn to navigate public transport in the city of Melbourne and become familiar with our beautiful city. In Year 10 students attend a YWAM (Youth with a Mission) trip to far north Queensland and live amongst the aborigines in Palm Island. In Year 11, students attend the YWAM City Campus in Melbourne and learn about our city's poor and homeless. Schoolies week for Year 12's is spent in Thailand on a mission trip, living and working amongst the poor and loving children at the orphanages. But, how do we live the rest of the year at school?
HCC are currently developing their entire school grounds into a piece of heaven on earth. They have built an outdoor classroom facility where students get out from under fluorescent lights and learn in a healthy, bright, airy laboratory built on sustainable, recyclable and energy saving practices. We have built a clay and straw chook house to home 40 chooks so students learn about animals and obtain fresh free-range eggs daily for our hospitality classes. The school grounds home various varieties of heritage fruit trees for students to eat fresh during their breaks. Many vegetable and herb beds dot the school with future seating areas covered in vine pergolas, creating a calming happy relaxing place to be. Students will participate in the design and construction of their healthy outdoor environment. Soon we will have an outdoor kitchen and BBQ area for lunch time and special events use. Our brand new Salt Cafe allow students to relax in a modern and spacious area, with full view of a state of the art industrial kitchen, where various Hospitality courses are on offer, including Patisserie. We will see tomatoes hanging from overhead vines, watermelons, passionfruit, pumpkins, and more. As soon as our newly sustainable architect designed grounds are established, the students will be surrounded by life everywhere they look, not concrete and bricks. They will be connected to life around them.
Students will learn to preserve excess fruit and vegetables harvested, by means of dehydration, bottling, pickling. From Year 9, students will learn many skills in the process of developing our property by means of VETis courses. They will learn to build garden beds, brick pave our paths, make water features, propagate plants, harvest and plant in season, look after chickens, and much more. All these skills are transferrable in the workplace and are fantastic to have for urban house projects, and future travelling adventures such as the WWOOF program. Students will also learn the science behind where our food comes from. They will learn about the food industry and understand the ethical implications behind what they put in their mouths. Here, students obtain a life education that is not always found in the curriculum, or in a classroom.
Year 9 students attend the WASP (Wilderness Adventure Survival Program) camp yearly, followed by "The City Challenge" program where they learn to navigate public transport in the city of Melbourne and become familiar with our beautiful city. In Year 10 students attend a YWAM (Youth with a Mission) trip to far north Queensland and live amongst the aborigines in Palm Island. In Year 11, students attend the YWAM City Campus in Melbourne and learn about our city's poor and homeless. Schoolies week for Year 12's is spent in Thailand on a mission trip, living and working amongst the poor and loving children at the orphanages. But, how do we live the rest of the year at school?
HCC are currently developing their entire school grounds into a piece of heaven on earth. They have built an outdoor classroom facility where students get out from under fluorescent lights and learn in a healthy, bright, airy laboratory built on sustainable, recyclable and energy saving practices. We have built a clay and straw chook house to home 40 chooks so students learn about animals and obtain fresh free-range eggs daily for our hospitality classes. The school grounds home various varieties of heritage fruit trees for students to eat fresh during their breaks. Many vegetable and herb beds dot the school with future seating areas covered in vine pergolas, creating a calming happy relaxing place to be. Students will participate in the design and construction of their healthy outdoor environment. Soon we will have an outdoor kitchen and BBQ area for lunch time and special events use. Our brand new Salt Cafe allow students to relax in a modern and spacious area, with full view of a state of the art industrial kitchen, where various Hospitality courses are on offer, including Patisserie. We will see tomatoes hanging from overhead vines, watermelons, passionfruit, pumpkins, and more. As soon as our newly sustainable architect designed grounds are established, the students will be surrounded by life everywhere they look, not concrete and bricks. They will be connected to life around them.
Students will learn to preserve excess fruit and vegetables harvested, by means of dehydration, bottling, pickling. From Year 9, students will learn many skills in the process of developing our property by means of VETis courses. They will learn to build garden beds, brick pave our paths, make water features, propagate plants, harvest and plant in season, look after chickens, and much more. All these skills are transferrable in the workplace and are fantastic to have for urban house projects, and future travelling adventures such as the WWOOF program. Students will also learn the science behind where our food comes from. They will learn about the food industry and understand the ethical implications behind what they put in their mouths. Here, students obtain a life education that is not always found in the curriculum, or in a classroom.
The PermaLab
HCC's Permaculture Laboratory designed by Craig Byatt
Three shipping containers are put into place, and cut onsite.
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School community working hard on a Saturday workshop to learn how to create insulating panels to insulate the metal shipping container walls from the outdoor elements.
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The team of volunteers who, together with Craig, our architect, helped construct the outer panel insulation and the interior mud brick wall.
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Parents, students, school staff and community volunteers join us in building the biomass mud brick walls which aid in insulating the classroom.
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The fold away plastic tables make the room more versatile. The metal cafe style stools stack away nicely when we want to use the room as a work-shed to construct things like garden beds on a rainy day.
Collecting and storing seeds for next year...
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Students learning to make butter using clean recycled jars and fresh cream!
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Repurposing soft drink bottles into self watering pots. Getting our giant pumpkins started!
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Growing seedlings inside the classroom's hot house. This is a thermostatically controlled propagation bench, with automated water sprinklers that turn on according to the temperature and humidity in the room.
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On a rainy day, the PermaLab outdoor classroom
doubles up as a workshed! |
Aknowledgements:
Name of all those who donated their time to this project:
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Craig Byatt
Peter Cliffe Plotnek Family Lucena-Orr Family Pam Sanderson Kamper Family Carsten Family Karen Hansen & Family Buljat Family Parson Family Jeff Andrews Frank Jansen Zac Souksamlane Bill malcolm |
Alex Thomas
Kristin Jack Burford family Alex Marie Peter Smark Ali Hardaker Tara Lian Adam Coffin Austin Family Carl Santiago Charlie Jacobson Fitch Family Stephen Haggai Bircsak Family |
Friebel Family
Mike Clarke Charlene Edwards Elmatzoglou Family Chris Wise Michael Grace Tim Abbott Kristina Rogers Cher Tey Bill Malcolm Satinder Sharma Carrie Goff Pravin Ranchhod |
Please email me your name/family name if I have accidentally missed you from the list.
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Emma Adlam from Ispire Designs, Seaford, donated four classroom tables made from recycled hardwood timber.
1700L x 900W x 750H mm |
Contact: Emma Adlam 0475448282
Inspire design solutions Specialising in reclaimed timber interiors 1/12 Peninsula Blvd, Seaford 0475448282 |
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Andrea & Jason Lucena-Orr
Andrea works for Dulux and Jason works for 3M. Together they donated all the Dulux paint and 3M equipment needed to paint the classroom. Jason also coordinated a Saturday workshop and spray painted all the container walls by himself working into the night! Thank you! |
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Phil & Adrienne Plotnek
Donated this Retro Vintage Candy Garden Bench Seat. 
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