Nurturing Nature: Cultivating Sustainability at Kool Kidz
At Kool Kidz, we’re deeply committed to fostering a sustainable future for our children and our planet.
Each of our centres has sustainability embedded in its curriculum, with flexible delivery options for staff and educators to incorporate. Overall, our program is designed to benefit the environment while educating your child about essential ecological methods and the importance of sustainable practices.
Through our daily operations and intentional teaching methods, we aim to significantly reduce our environmental footprint and instil lifelong sustainable habits in your child, ensuring they grow up with a strong sense of responsibility for the planet.
We spoke to Lisa, the Education Leader from our Rowville Centre, about sustainability and how it’s integrated into their centre’s learning program and operations.
Our vision for sustainability
Promoting sustainability at Kool Kidz benefits our immediate environment but also your child’s understanding of their impact on the future health of our planet.
At Rowville and all our centres, we incorporate a variety of sustainable practices, such as recycling, upcycling, gardening, and composting, into our daily routines.
By doing so, we collectively reduce our environmental impact while fostering a culture of sustainability that resonates with children and their families.
Practical sustainability projects
At Kool Kidz, we always have a sustainable focus for the week or month, ensuring sustainability remains at the forefront of our activities. Here are some of the exciting projects your child engages in, each designed to be both educational and fun:
Creative reuse
For one project, instead of generic hat boxes hanging in each room, children collected two-litre milk bottles from home. Each bottle was cut in half, and the bottom half was attached to a pallet to create a hat box. Inside each bottle is their picture or name. They take great pride each day in putting their hat into the box they made.
Recycling week
During this special week, children engage in hands-on activities, such as making garbage trucks from boxes and using bottle caps to build a large grasshopper sculpture. Integrating art and creativity into sustainability helps children understand the recycling process in a fun and engaging way.
Recycling & compost bins
Each room is equipped with a recycling bin alongside the general waste bin. Children learn to sort waste effectively, and food scraps are separated and used in our worm farms and garden composting, teaching them about the benefits of reducing landfill waste.
Energy conservation
We teach children the importance of turning off lights when leaving a room to conserve energy. This simple yet impactful lesson instils a sense of responsibility and awareness about energy consumption from a young age.
Rainwater collection
In winter, we collect rainwater in buckets for play, teaching children about water conservation and the significance of using natural resources wisely. This hands-on experience allows them to see the practical applications of sustainability in their everyday lives.
Gardening
Children actively participate in growing snow peas, strawberries, parsley, and silverbeet. They engage in the entire process—from planting seeds to watering, harvesting, and ultimately taking the produce to our kitchen for the chef to use in meals. This is a favourite amongst our kids, especially when they enjoy the delicious strawberries they’ve grown themselves!
Engaging with nature
Each week in our Bush Kinder program for four-year-olds, children spend time outdoors at a local reserve. They connect with nature, learn about Indigenous practices, and participate in a Welcome to Country, fostering a deep respect for the land and its history.
During Recycling Week, they actively help pick up rubbish in the nature reserve, gaining a firsthand understanding of litter’s impact on the environment and wildlife. This experience educates them about the importance of keeping our natural spaces clean and empowers them to take action in their communities.
At-home sustainability projects
We encourage sustainability beyond our centre, inviting families to participate in bottle collection and use our worm juice and recycled coffee grinds in their gardens. According to parents, children come home from school and continue to promote the sustainable practices learned at Kool Kidz.
They are also very keen to adopt water savings strategies like rainwater collection for garden watering and play.
Reducing paper waste
In our ongoing efforts to promote sustainability, we have significantly reduced paper by moving most of our attendance and daily information online and asking children to draw in scrapbooks rather than individual sheets of paper.
You can find almost anything you need on our paper-free Kool Konnect App.
A lasting impact
At Kool Kidz, sustainability lessons are not just for today but for the future. By instilling these values in your children, we are helping to create a generation aware of our environmental issues and equipped to tackle them head-on.
Our commitment to sustainability is a journey that we embark on together with families, and we are excited to see the lasting impact it will have on our children and the world they will inherit.
Together, we can make a difference, one small step at a time, ensuring a healthier planet for future generations. If you have any questions or ideas about sustainability and how we can incorporate them into our centre, please let us know!
