Climate Oasis in Schools

In 2022 and 2024, Pollen was invited by Brimbank City Council to take part in their Climate Oasis in Schools Program, which aims to give students a voice in shaping the future design of their schools and converts their visions of a green and cool climate oasis into a buildable ten-year plan for the landscape of their campus.

As part of the program, Pollen facilitated co-design workshops with more than 50 students from Movelle Primary School and Copperfield College, as well as providing workshop outlines for Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Primary School and Cairnlea Primary School. During the workshops, students shared their future vision for the schools over the next ten years and learnt about key environmental concepts including the climate emergency, biodiversity and the role our green spaces play in creating a climate oasis. The students’ visions included many more trees, drinking fountains, wildflowers, nesting boxes, worm farms, rain gardens, and a few unexpected items like a ‘thinking tree’ and a climate-positive skatepark.

The final masterplans incorporated the students’ ideas by proposing native flower meadows, insect hotels, bird nesting boxes and wetland and rainforest planting to increase local biodiversity and habitats. Additionally, veggie gardens, fruit tree orchards, chicken coops and worm farms facilitate nature-based learning. 

The masterplans also included increased tree canopies and ground cover vegetation to replace hard surfaces, to ensure the outdoor play spaces remain cool and comfortable during hot weather.

These projects were a rewarding opportunity to empower children to shape their own environment. The proposed changes will help to improve the school’s liveability and support local biodiversity long into the future.

This project was also featured as part of the Collective Curriculum exhibition at the Melbourne School of Design, at Melbourne University in 2025. Collective curriculum is an open-source archive of practices for connecting with the world in response to climate crisis. Designers were invited to share a pedagogical exercise drawn from their creative or teaching practice of creative actions that respond to the climate crisis to inspire collective acts of repair and transformation.

PROJECT TEAM

• The School Children of Movelle Primary School, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Primary School, Cairnlea Primary School, and Copperfield College
• School and Council facilitators