Our sustainability education programs for schools

Delight in the wonderful diversity of our marine life and learn how we can protect our precious coastal areas, with a focus on litter prevention.

Learn about the 9Rs and what products can be recycled, repurposed and re-used through the waste sorting activity.

Through the 'decomposition timeline' activity, students learn how long various items take to break down in landfill.

Students are empowered to reduce their own waste to landfill by exploring how to become a savvy shopper and solve solutions for common household items to divert them from landfill.

Younger students can explore organic waste disposal options including composting and worm farms and meet some of the Eco Centre's resident worms!

Explore our rich biodiversity through hands-on activities including water-bug and leaf-litter sampling.

Learn how to make art from food plants, from berry paints to plant prints. The Eco Centre’s food garden provides a wide range of materials for exploration and artistic expression for young people.

Meet our Eco Centre earthworms and discover how they can help us reduce food waste. Explore plant lifecycles with ‘Beanie’ the Broad Bean seed.

Explore how human activity can impact our environment, including through climate change and waste. Through a variety of activities, students can discover how they can make a difference in our homes, at school and in our community and learn about some amazing young people who have developed innovative approaches to reverse these impacts.

This activity can be conducted at your school or at the Eco Living Display Centre

Explore our food systems and how we can make choices to reduce our impact. A tour of the Eco Living Display Centre or your school explores various aspects of sustainable food production including water tanks and rain gardens, our kitchen garden, composting and worm farms.

Explore what we can all do to reduce our environmental impact of the food we eat. This can include exploring the greening of the food production chain, the carbon footprint of the food we eat, the surprising impact of food waste and steps to tackle it and innovations to feed more people with less environmental impact.

Students will be guided through a series of age-appropriate activities designed to develop their awareness of the causes of climate change and empower students to understand changes they can make in their own lives to reduce their carbon footprint.

Activities can include:

• Climate change - what is it and what can we do?
• Carbonara footprint - Comparing the carbon emissions of different food using a hands-on, fun activity
• Climate change scavenger hunt/action plan tour - explore the Eco Living Display Centre for clues on how we can reduce carbon emissions at home
• Climate change Jenga - exploring different ways we can reduce our carbon footprint in our own lives

This activity can be delivered at any Mornington Peninsula beach. 

Discover the rich biodiversity of our coastal ecosystems, learn about human impact and how we can protect our water catchments. Can include a beach litter audit.

Primary: Explore Victoria's marine biodiversity and adaptations to the harsh coastal environment through a marine life mystery game. By observing changes in coastal vegetation and coastlines over time, explore how humans interact with and impact our coastal environments and the role of citizen science. Examine interconnectedness and relationships within trophic structures in a marine food pyramid building game. Where possible, observe features that identify Aboriginal middens, the threats to them and how we can protect them. 'Become' hooded plovers and learn how we can protect our precious shorebirds. Explore threats to the marine environment including climate change, erosion and litter and learn some simple things we can all do to protect our precious coastal areas.

Secondary:  Develop your understanding of how humans have impacted our coastal environment over time, the relationship different stakeholders have to our coasts and how we can protect our waterways. Explore the incredible biodiversity of Victorian marine life and how plants and animals have adapted to the harsh coastal environments. Examine threatening processes such as climate change, erosion and beach litter and how coastal managers can tackle these through adaptive management. By observing historical changes in coastal vegetation and coastlines, explore how humans interact with and impact our coastal environments and the role of citizen science.  Where possible, discover the identifying features of Aboriginal middens and how we can protect them. Sketch changes in coastal zonation across a dune system and explore the role of coastal management in protecting coastal vegetation. A beach litter audit allows students to examine the issue of marine plastic pollution and explore mechanical versus hand beach cleaning. 

Activities can include:

• Rockpool ramble (K - 12)
• Erosion exploration (Y 7 onwards)
• Beach litter audit (K - 12)
• Shorebird/migratory bird game (K - 6)
• Animal, vegetable or mineral (K - 12)
• Marine animal trophic pyramid challenge (Grade 4 - Y 10)

This activity can be delivered at any waterway or natural area on the Mornington Peninsula.

Explore common concepts of biodiversity, habitat and ecosystems, explore threats to biodiversity and how they can help improve it. Students will develop skills in classification, observation and analysis in a fun and interactive setting.

Activities include macroinvertebrate (water bug) identification, leaf litter audits, habitat assessments and a food chain activity and an exploration of how we can all undertake simple actions to protect biodiversity. 

This activity can be conducted at the Eco Living Display Centre or as an incursion to your school.

Learn through hands-on activities how we can reduce our home’s energy use through innovations and clever design.

Explore different building materials and how they can be used in sustainable house construction. Understand how the positioning of a house can affect its comfort and create your own sustainable house design.

This creative and interactive lesson provides the opportunity to think outside the box, develop a broad understanding of environmentally sustainable design, how human lifestyles impact the availability of natural resources, how individuals can move towards a more sustainable future and the many benefits of constructing sustainable buildings.