KANGAROO Inn Area School is in the running for the Innovation in Practice title at the SA Public Education Awards, with the winners announced next month.
The area school received the honour due to its sustainable innovation through inquiry projects for 2018-20, which includes a whole-school composting area and the Kangaroo Inn Area School Centre for Sustainable Living.
The composting project involves students from all year levels, with children completing surveys and research before setting up the composting site and adding worms.
The centre incorporates a small vineyard, a greenhouse, an outdoor classroom, vegetable gardens and a recirculating fish-farm powered by solar energy.
Trout are bred at the fish farm which is used for the school’s Aquaculture Project, with water reticulating through biological filtration and run by solar panels and a battery bank coordinated by the students.
The trout are for sale and sold out within two hours last year.
The Year 9 class also re-purposes stock feed bags and pencil cases to sell.
In the junior levels the preschool, Reception and Year 1 students have created their own pizza oven by making and firing a clay brick oven.
A partnership with Beachport Primary School has involved Year 7 and 8 students evaluating coastal pollution through investigating microplastic levels and contributing to global datasets via AUSMAP.
In a written submission to the awards committee, staff said the school had created better engagement, achievement, wellbeing and innovation through its curriculum with students from Years 3-9 achieving higher marks in their NAPLAN tests and 100pc of senior students enrolled in a science subject for their SACE.
Surveys undertaken by staff, students and parents also revealed higher levels of satisfaction and engagement with the school since the sustainable innovation ethos was adopted.
