Sustainable Schools
Hints on becoming a sustainable school.
NSW DET Environmental and Sustainability Education website
The DET website holds useful information including: curriculum related policies; policy support; new programs and professional learning.
Link here
Climate Clever Energy Savers
Applications for the 2011 round of Climate Clever Energy Savers is available now.
the closing date is Friday 24 September 2010. See the web link below.
This is a 4 year program, which promotes energy education & savings through curriculum and student leadership programs. There are two separate aspects to its implemtation:
1. Energy efficient lighting retrofitting for large schools: $20m 2008 – 2012
2. Grant program to fund student initiated learning and action programs: $5m over 4 years for individual or clusters of schools. Participants will be chosen in Term 4 by a regional assessment panel, based on sustainability action process.
Link to the web page for the next round of applications.
Hunter Central Coast Regional EE Strategy
Environmental Education Centres, together with other environmental education providers in the Hunter Central Coast Region have worked together to develop a regional ee strategy. The strategy provides guidelines on supporting student leadership to effectively integrate ee initiatives into the school community.
Download the HCC Regional Strategy.
Green School Stories
A project where schools are able to share their successful environmental stories with other schools.
Find out how schools implement environmental strategies using the link to different areas.
Read the Green School Stories
School Environmental Management Plans
As part of the NSW Environmental Education Policy, schools are asked to involve their students in managing their school environment.
The focus areas for schools include Water, Energy, Biodiversity, Waste and use of Resources for school activities and the aim is to find ways to reduce, reuse and recycle. This work involves students in collecting and analysing real information, problem solving real issues and developing planning skills.
Steps for each focus area include:
- conducting a desk top review of bills to identify costs (if available)
- conducting an audit to get a baseline picture
- identifying problems that can be fixed or practices that can be improved
- developing an action plan for improvements
The Environmental Education Management Committee prioritises and integrates the action plans and develops the SEMP.
Look for "Steps in Becoming an Environmentally active school" (p 20 Environmental Education Policy for Schools) for more advice. The policy and supporting documents can be found at this location on the DET website. Here are some helpful guides for running audits in your school.
Please download the PDF's below
Building curriculum links around a School Environmental Management Plan
Seven local schools have been engaged to develop models for curriculum integration of activities used to develop the School Environmental Management Plan.
Project aims:
Coordinate and develop strategies to integrate environmental management into existing curriculum frameworks in all stages and KLA’s.
Work towards implementing curriculum into the school environmental management plan or an area of the school management plan
Integrate environmental education and management into teaching and learning programs
Involve students in practical environmental management
Develop a curriculum of environmental activities and build into the existing curriculum framework
Wetlands EEC is providing advice, resources, training and facilitating a supportive network among the school coordinators.
Climate Cam in Schools
ClimateCam is the world’s first greenhouse gas speedometer. It provides an accurate measuring tool to track the greenhouse gas emissions for the City of Newcastle. ClimateCam will provide monthly estimates for consumption data and greenhouse gas emissions from the following sectors:
• electricity
• water
• waste to landfill
This year The City of Newcastle started a trial of ‘ClimateCam for Schools’. Five High Schools elected to participate in the pilot. The five pilot schools have intelligent web based reporting software installed. This software is called ‘Web Graphs’. They also have smart electricity meters that provide data to this software. Web Graphs have been monitoring this schools energy consumption on a daily basis for the last 18 months. For more information contact coordinator Christine Prietto