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One of Landcom’s more challenging objectives is to promote greater sustainability awareness among its customers and throughout the broader community.
Our research has shown us that overall sustainability awareness among our consumers is low and that changing consumer behaviour and understanding is going to be difficult, requiring a longer-term view.
“MY NEIGHBOURHOOD” INITIATIVE
With such a challenging task before us, we took the view that it should start from the beginning.
With this in mind, we set ourselves the task of developing and delivering a “sustainability education programme” suitable for primary school students. The intention was to reach out to young people at a time when they are starting to develop an awareness of the issues that affect their neighbourhood and the environment.
Called “My Neighbourhood”, this educational initiative was developed by Landcom in partnership with the Department of Education and Training and has been expressly designed for the NSW school curriculum. It is a fully interactive, computer-based initiative, specifically targeting the interests of 8 to 10 year old children.
The programme introduces primary school students to the built environment and simply aims to raise their awareness.
My Neighbourhood provides five separate learning experiences for children, in a fun environment. Activities include recording the nature of the local neighbourhood and creating a simulated “walk through”; exploring the sights and sounds of different types of neighbourhoods, including what makes them unique; working out the circumstances where different kinds of development work best and, finally, the ability to “build” their own 3D neighbourhood, using the lessons learned along the way. The programme, produced on CD-ROM with an accompanying Teachers’ Guide, has been distributed free of charge to all Government, Catholic and independent primary schools in NSW – approximately 2,600 schools in all. The programme is also freely available online at landcom.com.au/education.
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LONGER-TERM BENEFITS
By thinking outside the square, Landcom has been able to apply its experience in a different way to increase community understanding of the benefits of sustainability at a grass roots level.
Healthy communities tend to be those that provide opportunities for people to participate in decisions that affect them. My Neighbourhood provides students with the skills to begin to join in public discussion by educating them about the issues and how different stakeholders are affected.