2020 has been an exceptional year for Kreative Koala artworks and we applaud every single student and teacher who has put so much time and artistic energy into the project.
This is the first in a series of four stories where we introduce you to the changemakers in Australia primary schools
The United Nations has created 17 Sustainable Development Goals and each school participating in Kreative Koalas is tasked with choosing one main goal to study. For the very first time several schools chose SDG 2: Zero Hunger so let’s look at their artworks as they do their bit to feed the world and realise the importance of school gardens.
Looking at clean water scored Medowie Christian College the title of Grand Champion Community Project for Change in 2019 and this year the talented cohort turned their attention to zero hunger, with their koala appropriately named The Hunger Hero.
Inspired by their school garden and their participation in OzHarvest’s FEAST program, Medowie’s Hunger Hero is a palette of school-produced food including fruit trees, pumpkins, apples, chickens, corn stalks and root vegetables.
“It was excellent and surprising to see that, even though this garden was located in our main infants play area, NO ONE disrespected our garden. All students looked after it, made sure it was cared for and our plants grew healthy!”
As part of their project Medowie also collected over 150 tinned items, which they donated to Medowie Foodway, for distribution in the community to those finding it difficult to find enough to eat.
Visit their blog to follow their journey
Another school helping those less fortunate in their own community was Annagrove Public School who donated school-produced eggs and vegetables to Windsor Community Garden.
“We donate eggs and vegetables every fortnight to Windsor Community Kitchen and have decided that we will sponsor Windsor Community Kitchen and donate a portion of the money we raise on mufti days to help them pay their rent, as well as donate food.”
Annagrove’s koala Badayla (an aboriginal word for food) is also a pictorial exploration of the school vegetable garden and, as an added bonus, holds a container for the collection of food scraps, which are then fed to the school’s chickens.
Annagrove also participated in FEAST and were surprised at how easy it was to incorporate sustainability, not just in terms of food, into their daily lives.
“We now find that we are more aware of the impact we are having on our environment with everything we do. Another surprising thing was how we had a positive impact on other people we knew (some of our parents were even asking us for ideas and tips). Our parents, friends and family all showed changes in their behaviour through seeing and hearing about what we were doing.”
Watch their learning journal
Willow, from St Mary’s North Public School, was the third koala representing zero hunger and she is a split personality koala. The beautiful blue side of Willow depicts a sustainable world where everyone has enough to eat, while her orange side depicts the opposite. The students ask us: “Which world would you choose?”
The school garden also played an important role at St Mary’s giving students an appreciation for the hard work that goes into producing food. Their Kreative Koala ideas began in the garden and morphed as this crazy year of 2020 progressed through drought, fire and a pandemic.
“These changes also evoked fear in the students: what will happen to our world when we are in lockdown, how will we get food? This is how the students directed their focus on Zero Hunger, which then lead to studying the SDG’s Life on the Land, Responsible Consumption and Production and Climate Action.”
#KreativeKoalaKids #GlobalGoals #SDGs #ZeroHunger
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