Our school grounds are so beautiful at Badger Creek, it is easy to get excited about our environment! Sustainability themes are integrated into the curriculum at all levels, and we have the Healesville Sanctuary just across the road.

Badger Creek Primary School prides itself on relationships and connection with community. We have recently renovated our existing Harvest Kitchen Garden to strengthen connections between students, parents and the community via an outdoor garden hub. The Harvest Kitchen Garden is a place of learning, gathering and mindfulness.

Our Harvest Garden is an all-abilities accessible garden for growing fruit and vegetables, and housing chickens. The design incorporates indigenous connections through design and student voice used in all stages. We have also planted a native fruit forest and are enjoying watching it grow.

Over the years, our students have valued growing produce, harvesting this, collecting eggs and cooking as part of their learning.

We have beautiful and plentiful vegetable gardens at Badger Creek. Our Kitchen Garden mantra is:

SOW, GROW, EAT, REPEAT!

Classes spend time working in our gorgeous gardens. Our aims are:

• To equip students with the skills and knowledge to grow delicious and vibrant vegetables, herbs and fruit.
• To develop a love and appreciation of fresh, nutritious, health-promoting food.
• To connect students to the seasons and nature’s natural cycles.
• To excite and inspire students to create their own gardens at home.
• To have fun!

We also have small groups of students working with the FEAST Program which assists our students to develop many skills, including social skills and the ability to work with a range of students from across the learning community. Through these cooking lessons, the students will learn about food waste, sustainability, the appropriate use of tools and equipment in the kitchen, measurement (maths), while developing a sense of achievement by completing the final product(s) and sharing a meal together.

Other sustainability initiatives include tree planting in our local area, nude food lunches, and walk to school active travel.

Our chickens are much loved members of our school community. Each year we welcome a new batch of hens that we feed, care for, play with and chase back into their coup! We have even entered our hens in the Royal Melbourne Show… one year we won first prize! The eggs are delicious and our Chicken Leaders sell what we can’t use. At the end of each year, the chickens are re-housed with a member of our school community.