Teachers' Environment Network

The Teachers' Environment Network (TEN) has been running since 2005 and is a joint Nillumbik and Banyule undertaking. The network aims is to support local teachers in both schools and early childhood settings in delivering an integrated and locally relevant sustainability curriculum by:

• providing an opportunity for teachers to share knowledge, experiences and skills about environmental education and projects they are undertaking

• providing support, advice and encouragement to schools and early childhood centres, wherever they are on their sustainability journey

• providing a range of relevant and interesting professional development sessions for teachers around sustainability education

• bringing awareness to relevant Council environmental projects, policies, grant opportunities and events.

The Network usually holds two meetings per term on a Thursday afternoon in the 4–6pm timeslot. Often the meetings are held at Edendale, but sometimes at local schools to showcase an environmental project, or other local destinations such as the Gawa Trail in Watsons Creek or Bunjil Reserve in Panton Hill. It provides a variety of guest speakers, as well as the opportunity for discussion and sharing.

Over the last 2 COVID-affected years, most of the sessions have been held via Zoom, where we have continued to provide an interesting and varied array of speakers and topics including:

  • Dr Rachel Forgasz, a lecturer from Monash University, who spoke about climate change education
  • Dr Luis Mata, an ecologist from the University of Melbourne who spoke about native pollinators and pollinator observatories
  • Holly Hale, an incursion provider from the Yarra Valley specialising in bees and minibeasts and their importance in the environment
  • A sustainability grant-writing workshop run by CERES
  • The Gardens for Wildlife, Home Harvest and Seed Library programs and how schools can get involved
  • Kim Davis, a volunteer wildlife rescuer and carer on her role and how to help if you find an injured animal
  • Katrina Naish from A Fitting Connection (textile waste and recycling)
  • Rachel Sietzema, on dealing with environmental and climate-anxiety

We are currently working on the 2022 program. Below are the dates for this year’s meetings:

Thursday 17 February

Thursday 24 March

Thursday 12 May

Thursday 9 June

Thursday 28 July

Thursday 25 August

Friday 9 September

Thursday 20 October

Attendance at TEN meetings can be counted towards teachers' Professional Development requirements for VIT registration.

Please note that dates for meetings can change during the year depending on presenter availability. An email invitation is sent out prior to each meeting to everybody on our email list. If you would like to be added to the TEN email database, please sent us an email at edendale.education@nillumbik.vic.gov.au

We are always interested in ideas for speakers and topics, so please feel free to contact us if you have any ideas.

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