Bendigo Senior Secondary College cleans up Whipstick Forest

Project information

• Name: Keeping it clean – one person’s rubbish is another person’s rubbish
• Summary: Clean up Whipstick Forest and bring waste education into the classroom
• Lead: Bendigo Senior Secondary College
• Location: Whipstick Forest in Greater Bendigo National Park
• Themes: Parks; working with schools, illegal dumping, video, park rangers, cleaning up waterways and waste tours.

When you see an exuberance of teens whizzing through the forest on their bikes, you might be forgiven for assuming the worst. But if you’re in Whipstick Forest in Greater Bendigo National Park, you might also be in for a surprise; the teens are cleaning up the forest.

“The Whipstick Forest is littered with household rubbish, takeaway packaging and hard rubbish like mattresses, old television sets and car parts,” explained Meredith Fettling, Assistant Principal at Bendigo Senior Secondary College.

“With funding from Sustainability Victoria, we had 60 VCAL (Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning) students working with Conservation Volunteers Bendigo, Parks Victoria and the Environment Protection Authority Victoria to come up with ways to combat littering in the forest and educate the greater community to prevent the spread of rubbish in our national parks.”

Handing over the reins

“Students need to feel empowered to bring about change and believe they can make a difference,” explained Meredith. “Student ownership and choice was critical to this project. We didn’t want to tell them what to do; we wanted them to take ownership of the problem and work together on solutions to prevent littering in the future.

“The project needed to be flexible enough to include what students saw as important, but also to allow for diverse opinions and options, so students could do what interested them and still contribute to the overall group project.

“We started with a conference with our project partners. We talked about what these partners already do to look after the environment and ways for students to direct their own forest project.

“At the conference, students watched the film A Plastic Ocean. Seeing the scope of this global issue really lit a fire. We were surprised by how much it motivated the students to get involved.

“Next, we got students outside to see the scale of the problem. Students were astounded to see how much rubbish was in the forest. One student commented that “It’s disgusting how much is dumped. Sometimes it is large and costs the government large amounts of money to clean up.”

Choosing activities

The students then chose to participate in rubbish surveys by foot, bike or vehicle; tree planting or visiting the local Eaglehawk Recycle Centre to see alternatives to dumping. The project partners helped run the days, while students had input into organising communal food, activities and developing ways to share their learning with the local community.

The students decided to organise a clean-up of the Jobs Gully area, collecting 70 kilograms of rubbish. They ran a guess-the-weight competition at the school, before sorting, recycling and disposing of the waste.

Documenting the journey

“We recorded our activities and reflections from students to make a short film at the end of the project. Documenting our journey was a powerful tool,” said Meredith. “Students felt part of something special and empowered to make a difference. Seeing themselves profiled on local television was a massive highlight.”