The Enviro Centre is home to our chickens, guinea pigs, vegetable plots and fruit trees. The aim of the Enviro Centre is to provide a teaching space for students to experience a range of sustainability practices such as composting, worm farms, water storage and creating and maintaining habitats for local wildlife. It also provides an opportunity for student to grow food that is used in cooking and to feed the resident animals.

Each class takes a turn at doing Enviro Duty which allows students to learn how to care for living animals and plants as well as support the sustainability and environmental initiatives we have in place. It is open once a week at lunchtime to all students to explore or do some jobs to maintain and improve the centre.

Guinea Pig Carer Program

Ferntree Gully North Primary School is fortunate to have six resident guinea pigs that are much loved by the school community. Students in Grade 3 and 4 are offered the opportunity to be a Guinea Pig carer for two terms. Our guinea pigs require daily care every day of the year and Guinea Pig carers play an important role in ensuring this occurs.

The role includes:

• organising and managing the opening of the Enviro Centre on Wednesdays at lunchtime to supervise students holding the guinea pigs in a safe and caring way.
• cleaning out the hutch every three weeks by moving the straw to the compost pen and replacing it with new straw.
• being available to do Enviro Centre duty over the holidays and making sure the guinea pigs, chickens and plants are looked after.
• being a classroom expert to support and assist the class when they are on Enviro duty.