Our Eco-Cubby Project
‘Eco-Cubby is a workshop program for children that place architects and designers in schools and communities to promote the concept of sustainable design. Through the development of an Eco-Cubby, children engage in challenging dialogue to learn about, build awareness of and take action for sustainable living.’
Kathy Scott, Leading Teacher-Primary, introduced her staff to this project early 2012. The project was developed by the City of Melbourne and Regional Arts Victoria to encourage young people to explore sustainable living. Lisa and I jumped at the chance for our 3 / 4 class to be involved in the Eco-Cubby Project. Kathy registered us and we were accepted to become part of the program. Regular visits during the year from our architects, Sunny Wilder (Building Architect) and Cathy Pirrie (Landscape Architect), saw the students move from whimsical ideas of what a ‘dream school cubby’ would be, to the designing and making of a user friendly, environmentally sustainable and practical model of a cubby for our school ground.
Lisa and I embraced the idea that this project could be embedded into our core curriculum. Kelly Boucher, Gippsland co-ordinator of the project, visited us to observe our progress. She was excited about the work we were doing and commented that the children showed a very high level of commitment and congratulated us for making the project a real part of the curriculum.
The model of our cubby has been on display in Melbourne at the Sustainable Living Festival and will be returned to us over Easter. We will display the model, and a journal of the students’ collated work, at the school in Term 2. Meanwhile, enjoy the short films that show some of the work the Year3 /4 students did during the year towards their Mallacoota P-12 College Eco-Cubby.
Thanks to Don Ashby for the filming and Paul Bryan for opening our website!
Lee Ellis and Lisa Broome