Chewton Primary School

Our project involves the building of two garden beds with a focus on bush tucker. 

It is one element in a multi-staged garden redevelopment project, with the existing food garden being incrementally replaced with a water wise environmentally sustainable series of garden beds which will be easier to maintain and create more diverse opportunities for education about healthy soil, nutrition, food security and cooking.

Cooking programs with children often focus on plants which have a European origin, in contrast to local bush tucker plants used by Dja Dja Wurrung people for thousands of years. 

The redeveloped garden beds will contribute to the further development of Chewton's implementation of indigenous pedagogy into the curriculum. It will further develop the teaching of indigenous culture, the use of local plants for food and medicine and indigenous history. The use of many of these plants for medicine and weaving will be incorporated into the science and arts curriculum.