Working Groups of the RCE-GWS

Riverfarm and River health

Current RCE members: UWS (group leader); Western Sydney Institute-TAFE; HEN; Darug Tribal Aboriginal Corporation; Hawkesbury Alumni Charter; Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment Management Authority; NSW Department of Education & Community; Brewongle Environmental Education Centre

The Hawkesbury Riverfarm (opens in a new window) is a flagship initiative of the RCE and is coordinated by the UWS Office of Sustainability. It is being build as a living laboratory on social, cultural, economic and environmental change and a learning resource for GWS school students, VET trainees and community groups.

The facility will offer multidisciplinary education programs for Greater Western Sydney Schools based on a sustainability platform linked to the new national K-12 cross-curriculum focus on sustainability in Australia’s schools.

Under a MOU on Sustainability with WSI TAFE pre-apprentice students are assisting with the rejuvenation and renovation of the site allowing them to gain hands on skills in carpentry, plumbing and electrical through blended learning. There are a number of other collaborative partnerships and expertise that have committed to the project including WSI TAFE, Department Education and Communities, Brewongle Environmental Education Centre, Hawkesbury Alumni Chapter, Darug Tribal Custodians Corporation, Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority, Men of the Trees, Hawkesbury Rainforest Network, Greening Australia, Hawkesbury Environmental Network in association with the internationally endorsed Waterkeepers Alliance. 

It is also the base for the Hawkesbury-Nepean Waterkeeper project (opens in a new window) which is endorsed by Waterkeepers International.

Projects for 2013 include:

• Completion of the Riverfarm shed
• Grain silo conversation
• Board walk and boat ramp/shed
• Oral History tours of the site
• Bush regeneration on site
• Increased reporting and collaboration with the waterkeeper and local schools
• Love your Lagoons - wetland awareness project
• River Ecology for environmental education
• Jewel bettle project - on Hawkesbury campus with School of Science and Health

Love food Hate Waste and Food Security

Current RCE members: Hawkesbury Earthcare Centre through Henry Double Day (group leader); UWS; Penrith and Hawkesbury City Councils; Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils; Hawkesbury Harvest; Western Sydney Institute-TAFE; TVS

The project involves engaging staff, students and community in cooking workshops, providing them with information and tips on how to reduce their food waste, eat healthily, use local food and save money. The Love Food Hate Waste (opens in a new window) program aims to raise awareness about the impact of food waste in NSW and reduce how much 'good' food we waste.

In NSW more than $1,000 of food is thrown away each year in every household. Loving food is about wasting less every day – saving you time and money, making a difference to our environment. UWS will conduct a series of Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW) workshops in partnership with Henry Double Day including the distribution of LFHW tips and recipes through workshops and the UWS Community cookbook to minimise food waste and use leftovers, a 12 month pilot of a local food hamper scheme to promote local food cooperatives with the intention of the students developing their own local food cooperative and encourage student residents to buy local food and to reduce dependence on take away. The project will be documented by Television Sydney (TVS) and broadcast on community television.

A part of this program the UWS Community Cookbook (opens in a new window) has been developed and was launched in August 2012 by Costa Georgiadis, host of Gardening Australia. Love Food Hate Waste is supported by the NSW Department of Environment and Heritage (opens in a new window) (OEH).

• Applying for second round funding - preservation of foods
• Earthcare Fair in May

Business, SMEs and sustainability

Current RCE members: Western Sydney Institute-TAFE (Elizabeth - group leader); Penrith Business Alliance, USW, ParraCAN, WSROC (including Blacktown City Council). Guest Members: Penrith City Council, O-I

This RCE-GWS working group is giving focus to identifying cost-effective approaches to greening their operations and their core business.  It is also looking at how to assist SMEs to ensure they take into account recent legislation. It is also working with the UWS Office of Sustainability to produce a map of current and emerging career opportunities in sustainability and how becoming expert in sustainability management can give an employment edge.

The focus is getting a number of smaller to medium businesses to come together to tender for large contracts. Surveys will be conducted in the Dunheved Business Estate. Find out more on the SMEs working group.

Projects for 2013 include:

• Working with SME - using online tools
• Sustaianbility Jobs - 'try a trade' event in June

Teacher Education for Sustainability in VET and Schools

Current RCE members: UWS (group leader – Professor Margaret Somerville); Department of Education & Communities (group leader - Danien Feneley); Hawkesbury Environment Network: Brewongle Environmental Education Centre; Blacktown Learning Community

This project is giving focus to the development of inservice and preservice teacher education programs on sustainability. This is in recognition of the fact that on the one hand there is now a sustainability theme in the national curriculum for schools and a sustainability module in every one of Australia’s National Training Packages but on the other hand there is yet to be a coherent approach to building attention into teacher education.

The project includes fostering links between schools, VET & higher education, community education, curriculum resources, living laboratory projects.

Projects for 2013 include

• Youth Eco Summit - state wide engagement
• 21st Century Education - Western Sydney engagement
• Living Links - rebuilding community aspirations in Willmont
• The Stars - looking at primary and secondary students aspirations
• Adventure Conservation - engagement, research and data collection
• Teachers @ Sustainability

GWS Engagement and Promotion

Current RCE members: UWS (group leader – Professor Margaret Somerville);  Television Sydney; Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils; relevant media staff from the Department of Education & Communities; Hawkesbury Environment Network; Western Sydney Institute – TAFE; Blacktown Learning Community; Hawkesbury Harvest; Hawkesbury Earthcare Centre

The focus of this working group is on ensuring that GWS communities are aware of the work RCE-GWS is undertaking and interested in undertaking. The strategy includes a selection of community engagement projects (for example the Our Place – GWS and the Alive! initiatives described below) and also featuring our work on the RCE-GWS website, via Television Sydney along with in other media outlets and Web 2.0 and 3.0 tools.

Our Place – Greater Western Sydney

The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) has partnered with the University of Western Sydney and RCE-GWS to implement the Our Place - Western Sydney project.  The Our Place project aims to support environmental and sustainability educators in the Western Sydney region to identify how they are engaging with their communities and how to get these communities more involved in looking after their local environments.

An EOI is being sent to sustainability educators in Greater Western Sydney to identify effective engagement strategies for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, along with local landholders, businesses, Aboriginal communities and community groups such as Rotary, early childhood and schools.

Alive!

Alive! (opens in a new window) is an Environmental Youth Engagement Project in the Hawkesbury region facilitated by Zhan through the Hawkesbury Environmental Network.

Alive! engages young people in the Hawkesbury through empowering them to identify and address a local environmental issue. This project is innovative and unique as the environmental issues that the young people work on will be identified by them and therefore also allows young people to have ownership and develop solutions to the issue on both a long-term and short -tem scale. Alive! is strongly underpinned by the development of networks, partnerships and relationships which will enable the work developed through the project to continue.

It provides a range of opportunities for young people aged 12-24 to engage with their local youth groups, schools, community and local businesses in taking action on local environmental issues in innovative ways.

Scoping Project

The project aims to take the wish-list of ideas and convert them into a properly articulated and integrated, collaborative community engagement and education grant application. Seed funds would be used to fund this process of:

• bringing RCE-related partners together
• identifying stakeholder potentials for engagement and education through their various ‘projects’
• developing a grant funding strategy to deliver this
  

RCE-GWS Communications

Current RCE members: Western Sydney Institute – TAFE (group leader); TVS; UWS

• Audit/stocktake of media
• Strategy for promotion - including website and television
• Linking media - including TVS local loop and news

This group is seeking members