Beauty In The Bog

Newcastle Herald

Tuesday October 1, 2002

By CHRISSY JOESTER

DORA Creek's newly established Landcare group has come up with a fantastic solution to a boggy problem in the school playground.

Having been connected to the sewerage service for only two years, the playground is left with a transpiration pit in part of the playing area.

Because the school has doubled in population in the past five years, space is at a premium.

Members of the wider community, the school community and Landcare met to discuss the issue and possible solutions.

The school had been successful in its application to the Lake Macquarie Council for a $3000 grant to transform this area into a learning environment for its students.

The school's Nature Watch group, led by Sally Birch of Dora Creek, came up with the idea of transforming this boggy area into an environmentally friendly Bog Garden, boasting native plants that would attract much flora and fauna to the school playground for students to observe.

Wider community members took up the idea and added much-needed drainage and a wooden raised walkway through the area to the plan. Much of the work will be done on a voluntary basis.

The Department of Education and Training will be working with the group on draining the site and locating double, newly refurbished demountables to give the site much-improved facilities.

Students from the Nature Watch group have already starting observing bird life and plants that grow in this area in boggy conditions.

All this research will be logged, as will progression of the project.

© 2002 Newcastle Herald

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