KU supports environmental sustainability in early education

A Bee Friendly Block: Creating Community Connections

In 2018 KU Mayfield Preschool purchased a native beehive and included children in STEAM research and learnings about native bees and what they do for the environment.

The children discovered that bees are engineers and play a vital role in providing much of the food we eat through pollination. Their understanding was demonstrated in a wholly creative way as Karen Hugo, Director of KU Mayfield Preschool explains.

“A for Arts has been included in our STEM program for many reasons,” she says.

“Young children are preliterate or have emerging literacy as far as writing is concerned, but they can use the arts to describe and record what they know or what they are learning and thinking about. As educators we want to provide children with a variety of ways to express their ideas inspired by the concept of 100 languages from Reggio Emilia.”

“The arts include visual arts but also music and dramatic play. Involving the Arts also attracts creative people into the sciences, and this is what we need looking forwards for innovation and a sustainable future”, says Karen.

In 2019, grant funds were secured by KU Mayfield to make an even greater community impact and create a Bee Friendly Block by inviting households and businesses in their immediate area to join the service in their sustainability efforts.

The children, guided by their educators, hand delivered letters they wrote about their bee project to 42 neighbours of the service, offering a free native plant, a bee hotel and beekeeping advice so they could welcome the pollinators in their own gardens.

The recruitment drive was a hit with close to 50 per cent of people approached delighted to accept the offer.

“This project has been an incredible way to form links within the local community and share an awareness of native bees,” says Karen.

“After purchasing a hive of native bees from Ku-ring-gai Council in 2018 we began to learn more about them with the children. Everyone was mesmerized by the little insects as they appeared to float about visiting the flowers and blossoms in our preschool yard.”

“Many of our children and families were not aware of the number of native bees in Australia or their important role as pollinators. We were all surprised to learn how far these tiny insects fly when foraging and the children’s interest in where our bees might visit spawned the idea for the project.

“We looked at Google Maps, drew our own maps and went out on walks to explore the 500m radius. This is a genuine way that the children have been able to connect with and contribute to their local community,” Karen says.

The native bees continue to be a big part of KU Mayfield’s environment as well as an ongoing interest for newly enrolled children. And with the varroa mite, the world’s most devastating honeybee pest, arriving less than six kilometres away in the Port of Newcastle earlier in the year, educators were able to build on their program.

“We have shared lots of learning experiences investigating these little critters and imagining what can be done about them. The biggest message as a result was it is even more important to support native bees and other pollinators,” says Karen.

“All of this information was communicated with our Bee Friendly Block neighbours (in fact to everyone in our big block) in the form of another letter from the children,” she says.

But wait there’s more. Not only has the Bee Friendly Block project created important community connections, a sustainable ecosystem for native bees, and an appreciation of the pollination process, Karen said it inspired another BEST project.

“Now we are in the process of creating a ‘Bush Tucker Garden to Share’ in another section of our garden. The point is to share it with families and neighbours along with other living species like bees, birds and lizards,” Karen shares.

“The children have been instrumental in the planning process for this new project, and this has offered lots of opportunities to learn about Australian native flora and fauna, and the different types of native bees and habitat,” says Karen.

And as you’d expect from the artistic children at KU Mayfield Preschool, they have created collaborative artworks as the design and inspiration for the Bush Tucker Garden.

A Discovery Project: A Story of Change and Possibility

Beginning in early 2022, eight KU early education services undertook a project to discover how to responsibly manage waste from paper towels and reduce its impact on landfill.

A connection was made with Plate to Paddock, an organisation that works with businesses to avoid and minimise waste from the outset. And where waste cannot be avoided, rather than see it being sent to landfill, they assist with either managing it on site, or by redirecting it to charities or farms. They can even transform all sorts of organic waste into healthy soil.

This project started with visits by Elisabeth, the founder of Plate to Paddock, to the seven preschools and one long day care service involved. She inspired the children and educators by telling them how recycling used paper towels supports a better world.

“The ripple effect extended to spontaneous learning and lots of discussions and ideas about how we can care for country more,” says Sam, one of the Educators at KU St Ives Barra Brui Preschool.

The first task required gaining an understanding of how much paper towel waste was being created.

An audit of paper towel usage conducted by teams of children in each service revealed that on average the preschools used 1,200 paper towels per week while the long day care service used an estimated 4,000 per week. When added up, it represented a significant number of paper hand towels used over a year.

From there, the children needed to put in a system to collect the waste.

The Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company kindly donated recycled food buckets that were decorated by the children at each KU service specifically for the collection of used paper towels.

Plate to Paddock make weekly pickups to transport the waste to their farm to breakdown in worm farms to create healthy soils. A process that the children found intriguing.

“Aveer, Elena, Harper, Mika and Maddie have shown great interest in the project, creating positive discussions around waste and how we can impact change for our environment,” says Holly, an Educator at KU Fox Valley Preschool.

“Maddie told me, ‘the worms eat everything including the dirty paper towel. They are super worms’.” she says.

Photos of how the paper towels were transformed into garden soil were shared with the children, which sparked the question, “why are the garden beds covered?”.

As they discussed this with their educators, a child suggested “the farm needs a scarecrow”. And so began an inspired journey to create a scarecrow that involved many hands, minds and parent helpers.

Children at KU Killara Park Preschool invited Elisabeth from Plate to Paddock to visit again. They asked her questions about the process of converting the waste to soil and gifted her with the scarecrow they had made. In return Elisabeth gave the children a potato grow bag ready for them to watch grow and enjoy.

“The children are showing increased awareness of their usage of paper towels and continue to work towards lowering it”, says Holly.

For more information about KU’s Environmental Sustainability education, click here.