Green thumbs and garden gloves at the ready – students and staff at St Thomas More Ruse are loving participating in our weekly garden maintenance initiative!

For half an hour every week, each grade takes charge of weeding, watering, planting, raking and monitoring a specific garden within the school to keep our environment beautiful.

Through the initiative, students are learning about and participating in the maintenance of a natural environment within our school and how to care for our common home.

Each student and staff member has been given a pair of gardening gloves, as well as other safety materials to use when participating in this sustainability-themed teaching and learning.

Our garden initiative specifically achieves learning outcomes across the curriculum, including in English, Mathematics, Religion, Science and Technology, Creative Arts and HSIE. As stated in NESA's Sustainability Statement, the program is "contributing and making decisions about sustainability will help shape a better future that requires an understanding...and needs to be informed by experiences."

We're very excited about the benefits this project is having on our students and the wider community!

A special thank you to the Campbelltown Catholic Club, West Leagues Club and Bunnings Gregory Hills for their generous donations towards our sustainability initiative. They've meant we can purchase the garden materials needed, as well as soil and a variety of plants and herbs for students to help plant within our beautiful garden areas.