Mount St Thomas Public School
(Wollongong)

Mount St Thomas has won many environmental awards. It has approximately 300 students. It is a typical school. There is a large quadrangle but there are also many things the teachers, students and community have done to make it more environmentally friendly and at the same time instill those environmental values in the kids. Here are a few of the things they have done.

The students asked about a frog pond. It does not have to be huge but it has to be safe. It is frequently visited by interested students.

Student involvement is critical in building values.

The water tank is small but the important thing is not the amount of water saved but it is used by students for the garden and builds water saving values. They are actually doing something.

Students sort their waste and student monitors do the work.

A store room now stores the re-use room. All sorts of treasures for craft, projects and general school work. Items are classified and colour coded.

There is less compost now because of the chooks which are kept at the school. Nearby families feed the chooks during holidays.

Pleasant grounds.

The school is involved in the "Solar in Schools" program run by the Sustainable Energy Development Agency (SEDA) and DET. The panels and equipment are worth approximately $20 000 and supplied by SEDA.

Mount St Thomas: a great school for students and teachers. A pleasant and stimulating environment to be in each day. A very important aspect of any environmental program is not how much water or energy a school saves (this helps) but students are immersed within an environmentally friendly culture and hopefully will develop values for the environment for life.

Mount St Thomas has an extremely good web site on the operation of the school.
www.mtstthomas-p.school.nsw.edu.au