This year, our Class 3 farmers milled a record 21kg of finest biodynamic flour from their wheat harvest, to be baked into bread next week.

The wheat seed, received from the Class 4 students at the Primary School's Autumn Festival, was planted and tended as part of the Class 3 farming curriculum. This season marks the third in which the crop has been sown from Shearwater's own seed bank.

Special thanks to Sally Davison who donated the stone mill (pictured above).

The ​Year 8 students have been busy in their Technology Main Lesson for the past three weeks. They have been working at the School Farm studying Agriculture and Food Technology, as well as learning about sustainable practices in Materials Technology.
The students have recycled and repurposed a range of materials to construct a Flow Form and a Black Fly larvae composter that uses natural processes to turn the organic waste from the School into compost. The Flow Form is a series of concrete forms that allows water to cascade down from one to the other to oxygenate and energise the water for biodynamic preparations to be used on the Farm.
​
Tony Van den Driest
Technology Teacher

During the first three weeks of Term 3, Julie’s Class 7 students planted 530 trees. 208 of these were donated by Mullumbimby’s Rainforest 4, to coincide with a visit to Shearwater by an Indonesian delegation dedicated to saving orangutans  through education, conservation and plantings in their country. These trees were planted in a sharp bend of the creek beyond the music rooms and Grandfather Fig.
 
The other 322 trees were planted along the watercourse of our ephemeral wetland that was altered to facilitate the construction of the Kindergarten and Preschool.
 
Cathy’s Class 7 plantings from just six months ago behind the Kindy have absolutely thrived as a result of the wonderful wet weather that followed the dry hot summer.
 
These latest plantings behind the Preschool will have a harder time of it as we appear to be heading into another long, hot and probably dry spring and early summer.
 
As I am retiring after 19 years of  environmental restoration at Shearwater, this will be my last Class 7 planting and I congratulate this class on the magnificent effort they put in. There was no shade for this planting, just full sun and some very windy days. Thank you Julie for what you have given these bright young students.
 
The School received a for $6,600 grant from the Biodiversity Conservation Trust (you’ve seen their Land for Wildlife signs all around the shire) to cover this planting and the next two years of wetland restoration.
 
With the help of farmer Beau (who probably planted some of the more established trees when he was a student of the School), we have also managed to plant 150 trees along the road verge, beyond the Farm dam, with Classes 8, 9 and 10.
 
All told, we have planted over 20,000 trees at the School since 2001 - an epic project and one I will miss being a part of. But I am confident Shearwater will continue its environmental restoration well into the future.
 
Thank you Shearwater, for letting me be the guardian of our forest.
 
Ken Ohlsson
Coordinator Gardening and Bush Regeneration

After almost 20 years of mud, sweat (and probably a few tears), Shearwater's Class 7 rainforest tree planting finally reached the far western end of our 1.8km section of Mullumbimby Creek's riparian sub-tropical rainforest, towards the end of last year.

We could easily start over again, filling gaps, repairing flood damage, removing persistent weeds, extending the canopy cover and replanting areas that have proved less successful. Work that I hope future generations of Class 7 students will put their backs into, continuing the School's long-term commitment to environmental restoration.

This year, which will be my 19th (and last) with Shearwater, we have shifted our focus back to the ephemeral wetland that drains much of the School as it winds from our western paddocks, through the middle of our grounds, passing under the High School and Office buildings, and eventually exiting under the staff car park bridge.

The first section of the wetland, at the eastern end of the School, was reconstructed and regenerated when we moved to the current site, and has evolved into the thriving ecosystem we can observe from the canteen area.
The next 300 metres heading west upstream from the library was regenerated by staff and Class 7 students over three years from 2009 to 2012, with generous funding from the NSW Environmental Trust under its Restoration & Rehabilitation Scheme.

Significant changes were made to the location of the main wetland watercourse when the Kindy and Preschool were built, necessitating the removal of some of our previous plantings and, during the last summer holidays, we used a large excavator to alter the drainage of the Farm’s western paddocks and the farm shed area, so that all excess water flows down behind the Kindy and Preschool and joins the previously regenerated wetland forest.

During Term 1, Cathy’s Class 7 worked with our bush regenerators, gardeners and teachers to plant over 420 plants along the section immediately behind the Kindy buildings - a combination of appropriate native trees, sedges, reeds and grasses.

It was a particularly hot and humid time of year and, although I did find some shady areas that needed planting, the students did well to endure the conditions that make such work so arduous. I thank them for that. I would also like to thank the Kindy teachers and children whose afternoon rest time played out to the soundtrack of young teenagers creating a new piece of wetland forest - not always a pleasant sound. In early September it will be the turn of the Preschool to share in that afternoon soundtrack when Julie's Class 7 have an opportunity to share in the long-term rehabilitation of our site.

If you would like to see what Cathy’s class has achieved please look around behind the Kindy buildings where recent favourable weather has helped the plantings thrive.

Ken Ohlsson
Coordinator Gardening and Bush Regeneration

​
​As a result of state-wide changes to the Year 7 and 8 mandatory technology syllabus, all schools across the state are now required to include agricultural technology in their lessons. Shearwater’s biodynamic farm has proved to be the perfect setting for lessons that explore how food is produced.
 
One group of Year 8s have begun the term with a vegetable garden project, building the first of several raised wicking beds that will efficiently grow vegies in biodynamic compost with a minimal water footprint. The beds include a design for a shade structure that will provide an ideal growing environment even in the most extreme weather conditions. Students have also been planning and planting a perennial agroforestry system with fruit trees, veggies, herbs, flowers and timber trees, based on the ecological model of a rainforest.
 
Whether it’s digging, scratching or reducing pests in our cow paddocks, Oliver’s Hens have arrived and have been just as busy as the Year 8 students, settling into their new home and enjoying (under Oliver's watchful eye) plenty of lush grass, water, food and shade, despite the hot conditions. Oliver is expecting the chickens to start laying in the next few weeks, so check out Oliver’s Hens on Facebook or Instagram for updates.
 
Nine Year 10 students have taken up an offer of early commencement on the HSC Primary Industries course, which allows them to complete a nationally recognised vocational qualification that can contribute to both their HSC and ATAR. Previously, students commenced the course in Year 11 and completed it in Year 12. This semester the Primary Industries students will focus on nursery work, machinery and animal husbandry.

​Andrew Carter
Agriculture Teacher

The Class 3 curriculum places particular focus on gardening throughout the year. Every week, Class 3P spends one morning, of our Main Lesson time, gardening with Nadia. Harvesting information and newly acquired knowledge from these sessions is then documented in each child’s 'Grow Garden Grow' Main Lesson book.

Every year, the Mullumbimby Farmer’s Market runs an event for local Primary Schools called Grow Your Own Lunchbox, in which the children harvest produce from their school garden, prepare a variety of dishes and then present these at the market as a nutritious school lunchbox. The children prepared several of their dishes in the school kitchen the day before the market and included pickles and preserves made over the last couple of months.  

We served chicken and spinach quiche, Madagascar Bean salad, Brazilian turmeric rice, native raspberries, cherry tomatoes, beetroot relish, pickled lime and cassava cake. Yum!

It was a very interesting experience to think and work like farmers throughout this process. It’s not as easy as popping into the supermarket to buy produce - we had to rely on Mother Nature to provide the right conditions for our plants to grow and be ready for harvesting. We discovered that not everything works to a plan. We were hoping to harvest our wheat at the beginning of the term, but due to the wet weather, it was too damp to harvest so we could not make any bread or flour items for the market.

All the children were very proud of their creations. They were fortunate enough to receive two awards at the Market that celebrated their efforts: the Lunchbox Snack Award for their cassava cake with native raspberries, and the Abundant Native School Garden Award. We would like to thank Nadia for all her preparation and planning to ensure the produce was ready to harvest in time for this event. 

Penny Martin
Class 3 Teacher