Initiatives
Environmental Education
Brewongle Environmental Education Centre (opens in a new window) offers a wide range of environmental education and field work opportunities for students, teachers and the community to engage and learn a diverse range of fundamentals surrounding the environmental and aboriginal educational programs.
The University of Western Sydney has collaborated with the Longneck Lagoon and Brewongle Environmental Education Centres to develop engaging academic enrichment programs for school students. To find out more please read UWS Environmental Education Collaborations (PDF, 405.78 KB) (opens in a new window).
Follow Brewongle on Facebook (opens in a new window) or stay up to date by reading their blog (opens in a new window)
Education for Sustainability
Education for Sustainability (EfS) website is an internationally distinctive, searchable web based resource on Education for Sustainability that UWS and ALTC have shown national leadership in developing. The site covers the range of higher education approaches to program design, resources and support for EfS currently provided across all of Australia's universities. To find out more visit the Learning and Teaching Sustainability (opens in a new window) website.
Penrith Sustainable Schools Program
Penrith City Council runs a number of initiatives and programs for local schools around sustainability. These include the Penrith Sustainable Schools Network (opens in a new window), the Penrith Sustainable Schools Hub on Council’s website (opens in a new window), the Sustainable Times newsletter (opens in a new window), and a range of engaging workshop activities for students (opens in a new window) covering topics such as waste, recycling, stormwater management and catchment health.
Council also promotes a number of events to local schools such as Clean Up Australia Day, Earth Hour, National Tree Day and World Environment Day. These assist local schools to both make their schools more sustainable, but also incorporate sustainability into their students learning outcomes.
Development of Pathways into University
In a recent audit by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA), UWS College at Nirimba was commended for its development of UWS College as a pathway for successful transition into university study for students from the Greater Western Sydney region.
The University of Western Sydney and Lithgow City Council have been cooperating for several years to secure a viable and sustainable University presence in Lithgow. This has been an integral component in the Council’s Community Strategic Plan 
and is consistent with the University’s commitment to access and equity in higher education.
The outreach campus at Lithgow will be managed by UWSCollege, a wholly-owned entity of the University, which has an established reputation for providing quality pathways to tertiary study and positive academic outcomes for its students.
The launch of a new program, Associate Degree in Creative Industries, creates further opportunity for UWSCollege to deliver professional higher education qualifications that are relevant to industry needs.
