Howqua

A sustainable lifestyle.

From the moment a Howqua student steps off the bus at the beginning of the year, they are enveloped in a sustainable lifestyle. Howqua students and staff have established this way of life over the past 30 years by working with determination to create an environment and build a mindset that helps protect the environment and encourages the adoption of more sustainable practices.

Everyone who lives on our Howqua campus cannot help but be more conscious and more action-oriented about their impact on the world around them. Reducing waste, composting food, building sustainable energy sources, monitoring water usage and ensuring that our human actions do not negatively impact on biodiversity are some of the practices at Howqua. These systems and routines led to the Howqua campus being recognised as a leading sustainable school, receiving 5 Stars from the Victorian Government’s ResourceSmart Schools Program in 2016. Howqua is one of only 47 schools in Victoria to earn this rating. Today’s students are heavily involved in continuing our everyday sustainability practices and each year we implement new initiatives.

Greenies is a club led by a teacher and two student captains who offer hands on learning activities every week that educate and engage students in sustainability practices. Typically, this includes educating the campus about the principles of sustainability in fun and interactive ways such as growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing vegetables grown in the greenhouse. A symbol of how sustainability is passed down from one Howqua cohort to the next is through the small but significant action of our Greenies planting seedlings in the greenhouse for next year’s students to harvest and consume.

Each year, our Howqua students, led by the Greenies captains, plant native plants in specific areas around campus. Another activity that Greenies have been involved in is the Regent Honeyeater Project where students have assisted local property owners in planting tree species to create new habitats for the regent honeyeater and improve our local biodiversity. Students this year took part in a Platypus Conservation Project in Jamieson where they learned about platypus habitats and took actions in Jamieson and on campus to help promote the local platypus population. Students saw first-hand what a huge

impact a small sticker on a piece of fruit can make to our natural environment when they sorted composted soil onto the vegetable garden beds. They picked out hundreds of stickers to put into landfill and diverted the journey of the Howqua fruit stickers. Not content with mitigating the damage of plastic in the environment, the Greenies captains came up with a way to stop the stickers from getting into the Howqua compost in the first place by creating a ‘fruit sticker competition’. Each House peeled off and stuck their fruit stickers on their House chart next to fruit boxes in the Dining Hall with the winning House to receive a prize at the end of the year.

From an academic standpoint, Howqua Projects is an elective class where students carry out a range of activities around the campus that include working in the greenhouse and maintaining the composting system. The experiential nature of the Howqua program and its proximity to the bush enables us to model the cultural and behavioural changes that are required to fulfil local, national and global sustainability targets. Students see and study the negative impact of human activities on the environment and undertake a biodiversity audit to investigate the flora and fauna around campus and monitor for any changes that may be due to climate change. These rich learning opportunities not only take advantage of the unique learning environment at Howqua, but also empowers them with the knowledge that they can be agents of change.

Over three decades, Howqua staff and students have built a community that values our connection to place through targeted actions and a commitment to sustainability. There is an undeniable pride that our girls have for their home away from home, and nowhere is this more prominent than on the local radio where students have discussed the principles of sustainability and what they do at Howqua to ensure that they are passing on this special place in a better state than they leave it.

Vanessa Hewson Assistant Principal (Student Experience and Wellbeing), Howqua Campus