Neat Nursery

In recent weeks, Andy Tan and his landscaping team, together with Facilities staff and outside contractors, have done an impressive job of reorganising the Dover nursery. Rotting wood and broken pots have been disposed of, replaced by lightweight metal tables with mesh tops and relaid artificial turf. Even our Shade House has had a makeover.

The Rainforest Restoration Project should soon be moving its base to the space near the new Ecology Centre. As we do so, we should dispose of our much-loved but dilapidated cupboards. As ever, we should ensure all our species are labelled and bring our inventory up to date. A next step may be to seek new stock from NParks while also using cuttings to propagate some indigenous species.

COVID-19 has interrupted our meetings with NParks partners, but we are exploring the possibility of being assigned a section of the Rail Corridor for reforestation, from seedling collection, through nursery care, planting and subsequent monitoring of tree growth.

Last Day

Thanks and well done to the incredible Incredible Edible team this year.

Bean Too Long

After two weeks away the beds were somewhat overgrown, so the team split into weeding duties and demolition work.

The cucumbers and garlic were freed from weeds and the world's smallest cucumber was discovered:

Meanwhile two old rotting beds were moved to make way for the new space age one we had constructed before the break:

There was excitement when some beetle larvae were disturbed, but we are fairly sure they were more startled than us. Don't worry, they were safely moved to new homes in the garden.

Finally, to explain the title, some long beans were harvested and taken home- Incredibly Edible.

Building the new beds

Incredible Edibles sheltered from today's storm and started to assemble the first of our five new planting beds. The team tried all possible configurations, finally deciding that long and thin was best so you could reach and weed all of the bed easily. It also looked like a boat.

Who said teenagers don't know how to make a bed?

There was a pleasing amount of mathematics involved in the conversations as the builder/gardeners discussed the comment that whatever shape we used, the area would be the same. Is this true? Maybe the diagrams below will help:

Let's hope for better weather when it comes to locating and filling the beds after the break.

Have a great holiday everyone.

Tips on how to water the plants

Grade 3 Water Warriors teaching their classmates

Many thanks to Clare Willis (Grade 3 teacher and budding movie director) for putting together a very informative training video for the grade. 

Grade 3 Water Warriors helping our Incredible Edible Garden group

As you might imagine, the blazing sun in Singapore can make plants on our campus quite thirsty. While we do get a lot of rain, there are times when our gardens need a bit of extra help. Grade 3 have just started a whole grade environmental service where they water some of the plants in our edible garden patch.

This initiative is a great example of collaboration amongst different grades at UWCSEA. Students in the Incredible Edible Garden extra curricular activity meet every Monday and Wednesday to plant and maintain the garden. The Grade 3 classes rotate on a roster to water the plants on Tuesday and Friday mornings.  By everyone giving a little bit of their time, the plants in our edible garden will thrive.

Today, some members of Mrs. Daniel's class marvelled at how quickly the water disappeared in the pot where the young papaya plant was growing. Who knew that papaya's were so thirsty. Another student was very excited to discover how eggplants grow and was meticulous in making sure she didn't forget to water any of the plants.

Incredible Edible - growing vegetables on campus

This year (2016-2017) our vegetable growing has stepped up a gear. We renamed ourselves Incredible Edible, after the network in the UK which works to promote healthy living through vegetable growing. There are now two Services a week (Monday and Wednesday). We have a determined group of High Schoolers who have taken on this Service for the whole year. They are working as leaders for the Middle Schoolers - 10 students have just come to the end of a two season service, and on Mondays, Mrs Lane leads a group of Junior School students. 

We have two vegetable growing areas - one on the roof by the Heritage Cafe and one by the Science Block. We are learning what grows, what gets eaten by bugs, what is drought resistant and heavy-rain tolerant (Singapore weather is tough on plants!). Students get to recognise problems and how to solve them, they learn how to grow from seed, how to propagate and tend plants - and eventually, how to harvest. 

They work incredibly hard (that's why we call ourselves Incredible Edible!), and are learning to work as a team and to spread the word about these vital skills through running a stall at the Holiday and Community Fair.

Check out our posts on Instagram - our account is #inceduwcsea - please follow us!

Campus Gardeners - A tale of Circular Economists and Social Entrepreneurs

Campus Gardening crew rightly proud of their work on the new pallet planters

There are a lot of Buzz-words around Sustainability at the moment. From the Business pages to the Management sections in bookstores and even in Educational curricula, phrases like the Circular Economy and Social Entrepreneurship are all the rage. Student groups here at Dover however are showing just how simple these big ideas can really be in practice.

Campus Gardening and Edible Schoolyard teams have been using these upcycled builders' pallets salvaged from the High School building site by our Head Gardener Andy Tan. Andy's carpentry skills have turned waste destined for the incinerator into a valuable growing space on a crowded campus.

Waste saved, money saved; a creative and beautiful solution for a sustainable world.

Fresh and tasty Okra has been a big success

With a bit (ok a lot) of guidance from expert Susan Edwards the new Grade 2 Garden space in the new building is yielding its first harvests. The Okra (ladies fingers) has been particularly successful and enjoyed by our landscape team in their lunchtime curries. And just this weekend some peppery rocket was delivered to Dover's very own celebrity chef and social entrepreneur Shen Ming Lee to try in a dish for her Fresco Supper Club. Profits from the enterprise go to support refugee education in Malaysia. So it seems yet another fashionable sustainability concept, Farm-to-Table, can be carried out right here on Campus and help a student's efforts to make business build a better world.

Super-chef Shen takes delivery of the fresh rocket

G2's Urban Garden in our new building

So much happening...no time to blog lah!

Term 1 at Dover Campus flew by with so much expansion of our environmental stewardship initiatives that there was scarcely time to record all that was going on. So here's just a taster of the last few months...

Green Campus GC has been working flat out to unite light blue, dark blue and green shirts for a sustainable future by continuously updating our recycling systems. Not only do they organise the system but they sort, clean and deliver most of our recycling on College. It's hard, dirty work that has little glamour and publicity so if you see the team at work on a Thursday afternoon, do show them your thanks for their fantastic efforts...and of course make sure you reduce re-use and recycle.

Talking of reducing LEAF GC supported by Round Square Student Leaders extended their campaign to reduce the use of disposable plastics on Campus with their innovative 'VIP lane' for those using re-usable mugs. The initiative was a huge success thanks to terrific organisation by long-time campaigner Samay Bansal (G12) - a man who has the courage and conviction to accept the moaning from those who have yet to embrace the zero-waste message. Clearly however the coolest kids were delighted by life in the fast lane. Boys where you at?

 

 The Zero-waste message was re-enforced by the outgoing Student Council at the end of term one with a vivid demonstration of a typical morning's waste at Dover Campus. This is our daily contribution to Singapore's Incinerator..yep everything here is burned sending carcinogens, heat and useful resources up into the atmosphere...the very opposite of our mission. Please help spread the message...let's move to the zero waste-age.

Campus Gardening now incorporates many different groups all working hard to support our amazing landscapes team lead by the legend that is Andy Tan. You can follow the Edible Schoolyard group on their blog here or on twitter @UWC_edibleyard . With attacks by squirrels, snails and aphids, this group are sure developing some resilience and learning a lot too. They have had great successes along with the struggles through and customers at the Holiday Fair were delighted to buy delicious turmeric and herbs freshly harvested from our dover gardens.

Andy Tan and Sajjat display these superb planters that Andy recycled from old builders' pallets. Turns out Andy's a demon carpenter as well as gardener!

Environment & Wellbeing: Sodexo helps connect the dots.

Chef Seenivasan cutting the Italian Basil in the Herb Garden

On the surface this could look like just another of our good news gardening stories, however this one has the potential to change the way we think about environmental stewardship and sustainability. Too often we talk about how we are doing things "for the environment" as though somehow Nature needs us...good old UWC saving the world again! In reality we know this is arrogant and delusional - we depend on our natural world for everything. In trying to protect our environment or at least minimise the damage we cause, we are really working for our own well-being.

Raising herbs in a small patch of Dover Campus may seem just a fun hobby, but it can point the way to a more sustainable future for the school, one that is focussed on the well-being of our environment and our community. Last week Dover's Veggie Wednesday saw our partners Sodexo use the fresh Basil grown by the Campus Gardeners for their pasta pesto - a lunchtime favourite here. So how does this tasty treat really join the dots in the complexity of sustainability issues where we are attempting not just to reduce our ecological footprint, but build a stronger, fairer community and enhance individual well-being?

Well, not only did the pasta pesto prove as popular and healthy as ever but the chefs really enjoyed being able to pick their own fresh-as-can-be, quality ingredients a few convenient metres from the kitchens.  And as one of the main points of Veggie Wednesday is to start connecting us to the ecological implications of our diets, what better way to demonstrate this by using herbs that have been raised using just sunshine and love and without the usual energy-intensive fertiliser, refrigeration, packaging and transport?

Chefs Raymond & Ah Fook preparing the pesto sauce

Not only that, but gradually much of the compost being used in the herb and vegetable gardens is generated on campus by the partnership of the Grade 12 Budden Initiative working with a Grade 9 service group and our awesome Estates team. And for all you Sustainability experts out there (that will have to be all of us at UWC), no prizes for guessing where the compostable material comes from - yep you got it, vegetable and fruit peelings straight out of the back of the Sodexo kitchens. So which genius invented this circular system? Oh, yes; Nature.

Less waste, less cost, less energy. More health, more community, more fun. Maybe sustainability is not that complex after all.

Many thanks to Mr Shoeb of Sodexo for providing the photos (and for all his help moving us to a more sustainable campus!)

Pesto's looking good...

....et voila!

Ok, so we had it with burgers, but hey, who's perfect?

Talking of more fun, check out the first Dover Organic Salad that featured in the Kurt Hahn Boarding House Gourmet Evening recently - Tossed Romaine Lettuce, Red Wispy Mustard Leaves and Mint, harvested just minutes earlier from the Herb Garden. As chair of Thought for Food and Kurt Hahn's demon chef, Shen Ming Lee is in foodie heaven....despite having to be photographed next to some random balding guy.

Spring has arrived!!

Well, not really... but some of us from more seasonal climes still associate the renewed productivity of gardens with the turning of the earth towards the sun...even if here on the equator it's constantly overhead. For antipodean teacher (how eurocentrist is that?! sorry, southern hemisphere teacher) Susan Edwards, it must feel like October at them moment as her fantastic herb and vegetable garden at Dover is thriving with thai basil, okra, tomatoes and much more. Our hard working, full time-gardens team have enjoyed several harvests of the tasty Kang Kong and the herbs and beans have been shared with some of our secretaries and parent helpers too. Everyone in our community should feel free to sample the food sustainably and enjoy the garden. Campus gardeners operate Monday and Wednesday after school and Grade 2 Gardeners on Wednesday 1.45-2.45pm...drop by and talk to the teams if you'd like to know more about urban gardening.

Alumni and Gap Year students with a strong interest in food sustainability may want to consider this new summer school.

Campus Gardeners gets great help from parents and staff and has members from Junior, Middle and High schools working together.

Our great gardening team (From L-R: Andy Tan, Kalam, Salem and Alamgir (with bin driver Alex!)

Good news for all of us is that Alamgir, one of our Bangladeshi gardeners, is on the mend after a long illness. He'd been looked after well by the nurses in the clinic and his friends at Dover and will be gently easing his way back into garden duties as he recovers. We hope he takes it easy (tell him if you see him working!!) but its great to have him back.



We recently recruited parents, kids and staff for some heavy gardening work as the campus gets redesigned. thanks to all those who gave up a Saturday morning for our second Gardening Working Bee.

A times the gardens resembled World War 1 trenches, but thanks to some sterling effort by volunteers and the gardening team we saved lots of plants from a small garden that had to be removed for Fire Access.

Grade 2 Gardeners learn propagation of plants for the new high school building.....

 .....and work come rain or shine!

We've also sown seeds and planted out vegetable seedlings this term as part of our weekly service.

UWC Day 2014

UWC Day saw more demonstration of our attempts at Dover to put our environmental ambitions into action. This year the heads of Global Concerns & Service (Susan Edwards and Cathy Eliot) orchestrated a range of activities to give students the opportunity to experience the hard work (and fun!) that a commitment to stewardship demands.


From beach clean-ups to mulching, mass propagation and tree planting, hundreds of students worked alongside their teachers to try to enhance the environment of the campus and the island. Grade 2 students launched their gardening service with an introduction to worm composting and propogating cuttings. Good to see lots of dirty hands and happy faces!

opps... forgot to change the sprinkler timings!

Stewardship in action.....

Only one of these is likely to get much taller!

If UWCSEA were truly to value Environmental Stewardship as we say we do, then each week of the term would look like this last one. Following the Green Wave Day in the last post, Sunday and Monday saw more tree planting to celebrate two Class of 2014 Graduates who have dedicated a great deal of time to sustainability issues..even during their I.B exams. A Flame of the Forest (Delonix regia) was planted by Mary-Kate and a Sea Grape (Coccoloba uvifera) by Aanavi. Neither of the tree species are indigenous to our region which breaks our normal rule, but they were both grown in our Rainforest Nursery from seed and very interesting trees that have thrived here in Singapore...a bit like the two non-native planters! We will miss the quiet, dedicated work of these two boarders and hope they come back before too long to see their trees add yet more beauty and biodiversity to the boarding house garden.

Vishy shows Ecology is not just an IB course

Wednesday saw more trees going in, this time at the Chinese International School where UWCSEA students (both Dover and East) helped out CNIS' new Environmental Group by partnering up to plant over 15 species raised in the nurseries on our two campuses. This was a great occasion with our High school students working with younger kids from CNIS to put biodiversity conservation in action.

Mr Meehan gets busy with a cangkul...
..for the third time time in 10 days! 

Lastly, Saturday morning saw members of our community both young and old contribute to the Gardening Working Bee organised by Susan Edwards. The Infants' Enchanted Garden was given a colourful make-over to enhance its interest and make it safer for kids and plants alike. Again this was a very enjoyable occasion and helped to build a real sense of community as well as enhance our natural environment (exactly what Sustainability is really about). Despite finishing sweaty, dirty and tired, the parents and kids alike all agreed we should do this more often! Thanks to all, including Andy Tan, Alamgir, Salem and Kalam, our superb gardening team.

Driving a Leaf chariot takes a dedicated team

Peace in the Garden

Campus Gardeners group continue their excellent work and the latest project saw the return of the Peace Pole to the new gardens by the Cafe. The pole was rescued from the Mega-Block construction site and now sits in the beautiful beds the group have planted. The flowers and shrubs can now be enjoyed up close too as the kids built some lovely curving stone and gravel pathways. The Peace pole has its message in different languages and was used in the past for curriculum studies of Conflict and by the Initiative for Peace team. Hopefully the garden will now host more celebrations of Peace..and even act as site for conflict resolution on campus. What a wonderful place to make up with someone.

So ever tend to your garden
Its beauty to increase
So in it you'll find solace
And in it you'll find peace
Rosamund , Lady Langham
















Photos: Susan Edwards.
Campus Gardeners were assisted by the superb landscapes team of Andy Tan, Alamgir, Kalem and Salem