Project ideas
What are the ideas that inspire your students to take action?
Get students together, take a vote, decide on the most popular issue, then start exploring some of project ideas below.
What could my environment team do?
- Plant a native garden
- Start a vegetable garden
- Make a home for school yard critters, butterflies, frogs and lizards
- Create a butterfly garden or bird sanctuary
- Plant trees on school grounds, or get involved in National Tree Day
- Create a bird box
- Create a frog bog
- Conduct a biodiversity audit
- Take an environmentally focused field trip
- Visit a National Park
- Start a school yard compost or worm farm
- Create a chicken coop
- Start a stingless bee hive
- Take an excursion and learn about a local issue
- Host a ‘Meat Free Monday’
- Host a waste free lunch
- Run an awareness campaign about the importance of buying local food
- Visit local farms and learn about where your food comes from
- Up-cycling in your garden
- Start a vegetable garden
- Fundraise money to give an organisation that protects animals
- Adopt an animal
- Adopt a koala
- Volunteer in your local community
- Volunteer at the Zoo
- Become a citizen scientist
- Get involved with digivol
- Fundraise for local wildlife and your school with EdgePledge
- Get involved with Earth Hour
- Conduct an lighting audit
- Set up automatic shutdown timers for computers
- Install thermometers in classrooms to monitor temperature of air-conditioning and heating
- Make posters and signs reminding people to turn off lights and electronics when they are not using them
- Get involved with the bike powered energy movement
- Investigate energy use at your school
- Ask your school executive to switch to Green Power
- Hold a walk or bike to school day
- Apply for grants or fundraise to have solar panels installed in your school
- Install blinds to better insulate classrooms exposed to sun
- Conduct a water audit
- Tips for a water efficient home
- Recycle water from taps
- Create a water smart garden
- Reduce the use of bottled water in your school
- Fundraise to have water refill stations installed at your school to deter people from buying packaged water
- Test your local creek or waterway
- Clean up your local waterway
- National Sea Week
- National Water Week
- World Wetlands Day
- Fundraise or apply for grants to have rainwater tanks installe
- Take an excursion and learn about a local issue
- Partner with community organisation such as Land Care and rejuvenate a local piece of land
- Host a sustainability fair
- Create a butterfly garden or bird sanctuary
- Plant trees on school grounds, or get involved in National Tree Day
- Create a bird box
- Create a frog bog
- Conduct a biodiversity audit
- Take an environmentally focused fieldtrip
- Visit a National Park
- Hold a walk or bike to school day
- Develop an infographic based on researching your schools’ transport ‘footprint’
- Research traffic safety issues for students in your school and share results with your local Council
- Start a Return & Earn program at school to recycle containers
- Join in Schools Clean up Day or Clean Up Australia Day
- Introduce recycling bins co-mingling recycling to reduce the amount rubbish going to land-fill
- Make reusable bags and share them with your community
- Introduce recycling champions, who collect recycling bins and make sure rubbish goes in the right place
- Do a waste audit and set litter targets and reward the school and individual students when they reach them
- Conduct an e-waste drive for parents and the community
- Mobile muster – recycle mobile phones
- Host a clothing swap
- Host a waste free lunch
- Clean up your local waterway
- Host a garage sale as part of the Garage Sale Trail.
- Run an anti-plastic bags campaign
- Include a ‘Take 3’ activity in your next school excursion, field trip or community activity
- Run an awareness campaign to improve recycling
- Introduce recycling bins co-mingling recycling to reduce the amount rubbish going to land-fill
- Introduce recycling champions, who collect recycling bins and make sure rubbish goes in the right place
- Start recycling your soft plastics
- Hold a stall at a local market day and sell produce from your garden or recycled goods
- Host a garage sale as part of the Garage Sale Trail.
- Host a clothing swap
- Host a ‘Meat Free Monday’
- Fundraise or apply for grants to have rainwater tanks installed
- Apply for grants or fundraise to have solar panels installed in your school
- Install blinds to better insulate classrooms exposed to sun
- Plant shade trees to reduce heat at school
- Map & audit your school playgrounds, create a sensory garden or reduce stormwater run off.
- Create and paint a mural with an environment theme
- Use Sustainability Connect to find people and organisations that can support your school project and sustainability goals
- Connect with environmental educators in your local area or region
- Connect with your local Environmental Education Centre
- Use the Go Volunteer website to find organisations to volunteer with
- Attend The Youth Eco Summit
- Get involved with YATZ, a Taronga Zoo Initiative that teaches teens about sustainability and how to protect our environment
- Connect with other young people at the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and Seed.
- Investigate if your local council has a youth network or forum