School an earth-care ‘innovator’

Trinity Lutheran College at Mildura in Victoria has received national recognition for its efforts with an earth-care project.

The college was awarded a place in The Educator magazine’s Innovative Schools 2018 list for its Earth Care 360 project. The project was made possible by an LLL grant – part of $105,000 LLL gave Lutheran Education Australia (LEA) to use for earth-care grants to schools.

The Earth Care 360 project came out of Trinity students’ concern about the health of the River Murray. They discovered many threats to the river, including a lack of water availability, pollution, and introduced fish species.

Students took part in releasing 20,000 native Murray cod fingerlings into the river. They also coded an app to teach people about fishing bag limits and worked with local environmental and Indigenous groups to produce interactive digital educational material about the importance of healthy river systems.