Last year, all students at Cedar Campus were part of a very exciting art project, led by the SRC, or Student Representative Council. The SRC gathers ideas from each class about ways to improve the school, and then meets to act on these suggestions. One of the suggestions was to make the school fence more colourful and attractive by adding some student artworks. Students brainstormed ideas and decided to use the fence art as an opportunity to care for our local environment, which in our case is the Merri Creek area and its plants and animals. We looked up a list of endangered plants and animals in and around the creek, and each class voted for their favourite one. Then each class held a drawing competition for their chosen plant or animal, and the best drawing from each class was painted onto corflute (corrugated plastic) by all members of the class, with the support and guidance of Ms Luca Uribe, the arts teacher.
The completed artworks now hang on the school fence on both sides of the main gate to Cedar Campus on Harding Street in Coburg, where the school community and any visitors can view them upon entering or even when passing by the school. Importantly, we have noticed many members of the local community including cyclists, joggers and dog-walkers stop to admire the artworks as they make their way to or from the Merri Creek Trail. These colourful paintings will hopefully remind our community to look after Merri Creek and its beautiful native plants and animals.
- Ms Mori Milholland