Mole Creek Primary School and The Real Education Experience (TREE) were both successful grant recipients in the 2021 Keep Australia Beautiful Tasmania Sustainable Schools Awards.

Sponsored by Hydro Tas and the Tasmanian Government, the awards granted funds to improve sustainability in eleven schools throughout Tasmania.

Students at Mole Creek Primary School recently conducted an audit of the waste collected at the school and in the town. This eyeopening exercise inspired the students to consider ways that they can do better as individuals and as a whole school community. 

The KABTas award will assist the school to expand their existing kitchen garden with the intention of creating a food production and waste management closed circle. The aim is to produce more food on site to use in the canteen and breakfast club. 

They are also looking for ways to reduce the amount of material that leaves the school and goes into landfill. 

The closed circle project will allow them to use more of their 'waste' resources on site. 

One of the most under utilised resources in the school is paper, which frequently gets sent to landfill. 

A new rubbish sorting system will see the paper turned into compost, worm food, animal bedding or even reused for craft projects such as paper making.

At Meander, the pilot program for The Real Education Experience (TREE) is being run by Deloraine High School.

TREE will use their KABTas award funds to buy equipment and utensils to support sustainable practises such as cooking and gardening classes for students in Grades 5–8. 

The project will also make use of existing resources and source items second hand that still have lots of life left in them. 

These small actions can have a big impact when students take these positive, sustainable habits back to their homes and families.

TREE is supported by Deloraine High School and Thrive, an inititive of Collective ed. Collective ed. is an innovative, five-year Tasmanian place-based initiative hosted by the Beacon Foundation. Launched in 2017, the project aims to get more young people to complete year 12 and enable them to transition into meaningful pathways after school.