Student Leader Sustainability Symposium

On Monday 3 April 2023, three of our School Captains and our Head of Senior School, Ms Graffen, attended a School Leaders Sustainability Symposium at Emanuel School in Randwick, alongside multiple other schools in the Sydney area. To begin the morning, each school group brainstormed different ways that our respective schools already work towards maximising sustainability within the community, as well as areas of improvement we would like to focus on, before sharing these ideas with each other. We heard from a guest speaker from Eco-Schools Australia and learnt about various approaches we can take to become accredited as a green-flag school. Our day ended with a pickling workshop where we were able to discover the wonders of fermentation and preserving food, and even make a few pickle jars of our own to take home! 

As a group, we learnt a lot about the similarities and differences across different Sydney schools in terms of how we approach becoming more sustainable. There were interesting initiatives run by other schools that we were keen to explore, such as composting and planting of Indigenous flora. From our guest speaker, we were able to take away specific steps that MLC School could consider in order to improve our school’s sustainability. 

It was wonderful to take a walk around Emanuel School and discover a learning environment that is incredibly sustainability focused. Of course, the pickling workshop was a blast – we mixed our jars with different herbs and spices to ferment our onions and cucumbers with (and even witnessed Ms Graffen shed a couple of tears over a chopped onion!). 

– Erica (Year 12), Julia (Year 12) and Chloe (Year 12)