CountryCare Education Program

Since June last year Bathurst’s Rahamim Ecological Learning Centre, in partnership with the NSW Government and community volunteers, has been retrofitting the heritage buildings and grounds to create a hands on demonstration site for sustainable living.  Rahamim’s CountryCare schools program has been developed for  students to learn how to conserve energy, collect water for gardens, create healthy soils and grow food and forests.  The CountryCare vision is to share the knowledge and skills that will motivate students to plan and manage for environmental change, inform students about our planet’s natural systems and challenge some of the accepted ways of engaging with the natural world.

Visit by James Sheehan Catholic High School Year 11 Students

30 senior students from James Sheehan Catholic High in Orange travelled to Bathurst in June to visit the Rahamim Ecological Learning Centre in Busby St.  The students came to Rahamim to study the life cycles, planting and care of plants and discuss the many reasons for planting native trees, shrubs and grasses as part of Rahamim’s new CountryCare education program for regional schools.
 
The students planted over 100 plants along the new swales and dams which have been built over the last 3 months to harvest, slow down and distribute the roof water from the buildings.  As more rain arrives the swales will automatically hold water for the trees and reduce the need for hand watering. The planting project also demonstrated the advantages of biological planting methods which eliminates the need for chemicals.

The plantings will become an important part of a planned walking track around the Rahamim site where visitors will be able to see a wide range of local native plants grown from seed collected around the Bathurst basin.