August 2017 | Sharon Webb

STUDENTS AND teachers at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic School in Deloraine will begin work on a school vegie garden this term to help students learn about digital problem solving.

Principal Mary Wall said that the school will share a Federal grant of $48,000, for both student and staff learning, with two other Tasmanian schools.

“The new national digital curriculum is about opening kids up to the possibility of exploring problems, then designing and making solutions that might work,” Ms Wall said.

“The school garden will be a real-life hands-on project for grades four and five.  For example, we have a problem with a vegie garden in summer, the peak growing period, with watering the garden when people are not on the school grounds.

“We may solve this problem with a moisture testing tool via Wi-Fi, attached to an automatic watering system.  It’s something sustainable because it’s about not wasting water.”

As the garden project goes on, teachers from all three schools will learn how to apply the digital curriculum in their schools.

“Teachers from all three schools will get together to learn about the teaching resources in this area and how to use them,” Ms Wall said.

The funding is from a $4m nationwide Digital Literacy School Grants Programme.

Our Lady of Mercy was one of 54 schools selected from almost 1800 applications for the funding.