The permaculture school garden at Cringila public school is an oasis, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. Cringila is a suburb perched above the Port Kembla Steelworks, south of Sydney, and has some of the worst pollution in Australia thanks to the industrial fallout. Which is ironic, because the permaculture school garden here is the most thriving place you could imagine.
From behind the school you can see a vista of the pacific ocean stretching north and south, with the steelworks and its industrial surrounds plunked in the middle. Cringila is one of the most culturally diverse suburbs in NSW, and so the school garden chatters with many languages, with permaculture and gardening as the common tongue. Read More »
School gardens are enjoying a growing revival currently, which is great because they have the power to be pretty transformative places. Since meeting Aaron Sorenson, I’ve begun to understand just how a good school garden can truly intersect with more aspects of learning than perhaps anything else that happens in a school day.
At this point in my ongoing research into school gardens I thought I’d share my 3 current favorite books that focus on how to start your own. Crucially, from my perspective, all of these titles focus on permaculture school gardens where the emphasis is on gumption, ideas, biomimicry and building community, as well as the growing and the eating. Read More »
School gardens have incredible potential to provide experiential learning. But what’s the best way to go about setting one up? I’ve been wondering this for a while.
Recently I’ve been asking around amongst my esteemed permaculture colleges as to what they thought were the best school garden models they’d seen or heard of. Aaron Sorensen’s name kept popping up as a school garden designer and facilitator that really stood out. So I thought I’d better go have a look at his work. Read More »
The permaculture school garden at Cringila public school is an oasis, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. Cringila is a suburb perched above the Port Kembla Steelworks, south of Sydney, and has some of the worst pollution in Australia thanks to the industrial fallout. Which is ironic, because the permaculture school garden here is the most thriving place you could imagine.
