Our Eco-Warriors were busy bees during Term 2!

Term 2 was a fabulous success for the Carey Eco-Warriors. Our focus this year has been on promoting and restoring biodiversity so students have set their sights on rewilding Carey and supporting Carey’s Sustainability Goals by helping to reintroduce native species into our garden landscape.

Our Wildlife Garden project is steaming ahead in a beautiful space behind the Redmond Barry Building with support from Boroondara Council, CERES and our wonderful Maintenance Team. In May, many of our Eco-Warriors team completed a special training program with CERES to learn about the native vegetation in Boroondara and how to choose plants that would attract native animals including insects and birds to the garden. They also learnt about the soil conditions that different types of plants need to survive and how to position the plants so that they receive the correct amount of sunlight. This was a fabulous program conducted by Ellie Ware from CERES and students had a fantastic time doing all the hands-on activities Ellie had created for them. Students also created their own garden design and were so thrilled to see it come to life when they planted out the garden at the end of May. Eco-Warriors are responsible for much of the ongoing maintenance of the garden during weekly meetings. They are currently working with the Maintenance Team on the next stage of its development and looking forward to watching it grow.

In Term 2, Eco-Warriors also teamed up with Mr O’Shea’s Year 10 Zero Group to help out with our first audit of biodiversity at Carey in our Junior, Middle and Senior Schools at Kew. Jane Burns from CERES led the audit and provided some really helpful insights into why it was important and what we can do to keep improving biodiversity at Carey. The biodiversity audit will provide invaluable baseline data to help us track Carey’s progress in working towards its biodiversity goals and will contribute to a much larger database currently being organised by Michelle McIntosh, our Sustainability Project Manager, who is doing a fantastic job of developing a profile of our waste production and our consumption of important resources including water, gas and electricity.

Eco-Warriors finished the term with a barbecue fundraiser for the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC). AWC is a global leader in wildlife conservation with a network of wildlife sanctuaries extending right across Australia. The AWC sanctuary at Mount Zero, just outside Townsville, is also one of our key destinations for the Year 10 Zero Program. AWC sanctuaries provide protection for 74% of all Australian mammal species, 88% of bird species, 54% of reptile species and 56% of amphibian species. The species under their protection also include many of Australia’s most iconic and endangered wildlife and we are extremely proud to be able to support them. We would particularly like to thank our Middle School Chaplain, Scott Bramley, and also Louissa Tickner from Outdoor Education for their wonderful support in making the barbecue a brilliant success.

Senior School Eco-Warriors meet every Tuesday during Senior School lunchtime in D101, and Middle School Eco-Warriors meet every Friday during Middle School lunchtime in M153. There is so much for us to do and we really need your support, so if think you can help in any way at all, please do come along to one of our meetings or email Julie Wetherbee and julie.wetherbee@carey.com.au.

Dr Julie Wetherbee
Teacher and convenor of Carey Eco-Warriors, Carey student alliance for regenerative futures
PhD Experimental Marine Ecology, University of Melbourne
PhD Candidate Indigenous Education and Education Policy, Deakin University