On Tuesday in Week 2 our YELP, Youth Environmental Leaders, participated in a full day Student Forum on sustainability facilitated by Jeremy Gramp from Green Adelaide.

Meeting in the main pavilion at Belair National Park we joined with seven other school groups from the local area to engage in activities focused on the improvement of sustainability practices in our schools and caring for our natural environment.

The YELP students participated in a group discussion about ‘envisioning a cooler, greener, wilder school community’ and shared their ideas about how our community will be addressing sustainability stepping 20 years into the future.

We could see –

· new modes of energy efficient transport and a connected network of cycling and walking trails

· all homes fitted with solar panels, batteries, rainwater tanks, composting systems and edible gardens

· urban forests full of local indigenous flora and fauna species

· the elimination of plastic packaging and land fill

Students constructed ‘Bee Hotels’ by cutting bamboo and native reeds into little sections, gathering them up into fist sized bundles and securing them with cable ties. The solitary native bees gather a ball of pollen, go deep into the bamboo and repeatedly set down the pollen to lay their eggs upon. Our bee hotel creations have been donated to our school kitchen garden and will be installed to support pollination of our fruits and vegetables.

We followed a series of guiding questions to reflect on our ‘URBAN WILDLIFE PROJECT – Wildlife Boxes and Greening’ project so far and identified our next steps to get our project underway. We have submitted a grant application with Green Adelaide planning to install 10 bird and wildlife boxes, plant 80 native bushes and grasses and install three interpretative signs.

After lunch we embarked on a walk to the nearby lake, we used binoculars to spot land and wetland birds and used identification charts to study facial features and identify bird species. We discussed facial and beak formations and the diets of a range of local birds.

Thank you to Jeremy for a highly engaging student forum and for sharing your key message -sustainable – enough for all for ever … what will you change about the way you live today?

Ava S, Ishista S, Khushi R, Lana R and Scarlett MC