Environment & Sustainability
Melbourne Girls’ College has received numerous awards for its energy and biodiversity campaigns. We are proud to partner with the City of Yarra in our ambition to be carbon neutral.
Our Student Environment Team is an enthusiastic Co-curricular group that promotes sustainability and leads regular initiatives, including:
- The annual Student Environment Conference
- The Pedal Power Cinema
- Murnongs – Wurundjeri bush tucker garden
- National Schools Tree Day
- Clean Up Australia Day
- Nude Food Day
- Sustainable Seafood Day
- Solar-powered Earth Hour Concert
- Zoos Victoria Seal the Loop Action Day
- Kids Teaching Kids Melbourne Water Environment conferences
- Ride2School Day
- Environment and Climate Reality Weeks.
In addition, the Melbourne Girls’ College Sustainability Collective is comprised of parents, students, staff and wider community members to achieve the best environmental outcomes for the College and our students.
The Sustainability Collective works within the framework of the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative. They are currently working with the City of Yarra and the Wurundjeri Council to improve the habitat along the Yarra River corridor by planting indigenous vegetation and targeting noxious weeds.
Melbourne Girls’ College acknowledges the Wurundjeri people as the traditional custodians of the land and pays respect to the sustainable way in which they cared for country. As recent custodians of this picturesque site, the MGC community have implemented a plan to reintroduce indigenous plants to encourage the return of native wildlife and to connect to remnant and revegetated bush land along the river corridor.
Since 2010, Year 7 students have been planting Murnongs and other culturally significant bush tucker plants along the riparian zone between Melbourne Girls College and the Yarra River. We are honoured to work with the Wurundjeri Tribe Council over this time and have gained a great deal of knowledge working with elders such as Aunty Dianne Kerr, Uncle Dave Wandin and Uncle Bill Nicholson.
In 2015 the Wurundjeri Tribe Council and Melbourne Girls College were awarded a Community Partnership grant from the City of Yarra and we have used this money to develop the Wurundjeri bush tucker garden and to cement our relationship. We continue to work with elders and other Wurundjeri leaders to teach our community about what the land in Richmond would have been like prior to white settlement and also about the way in which Wurundjeri used and cared for the land.
Our students have learnt about bush tucker, bush medicine, ceremonies and traditional sign posts that were crafted by Wurundjeri people.
We acknowledge the on-going support that organisations like the City of Yarra, the Yarra River Keepers, La Trobe Wildlife Sanctuary and the Victorian Indigenous Nursery Cooperative in supporting this important project.
MGC has celebrated and promoted sustainability for over a decade and proudly hosts an annual Pedal Powered Cinema.
This family activity on the picturesque banks of the Yarra is supported by environmentally friendly food and drink vendors. Along with the ‘Renewable Energy Sideshow Alley’, this student initiative is a highly successful community event.