The students presented a two-minute video pitching a business proposal titled “Parsnip It On” and came away with a $2000 Harvey Norman voucher.
Their idea is to develop an agricultural plot at San Clemente with all produce grown to be donated to local charities to help feed the homeless and needy people of the region.
The project is designed to not only help local charities and people in need but the students of San Clemente.
The project will also complement San Clemente's wellbeing framework, which is used as the basis for positive education in the school community.
Taking notice of an issue in our local area and connecting with local charities, allows students to learn about agriculture and growing vegetables and hopefully start their own vegetable garden at home.
Students will be active in constructing and maintaining the agricultural plot, which will also improve their physical and mental wellbeing as studies show that physical health, fitness and mental capacity all improve from being outdoors and performing gardening tasks.
Finally, this project will allow students at San Clemente to give something back to local charities and the needy in an area and allow us to “parsnip it on”.
The Year 10 students are certainly passionate about this idea as shown by their efforts earlier in the year when they ran food stalls at school with all profits going to charities. They learnt that a business does not have to run for the sole purpose of making a profit for the business owner. They were surprised how good it felt to do something for someone else’s benefit.
Year 10 Geography students have also recently studied the issue of homelessness in Australia, and how it impacts people of all ages, even children the same age as them. They felt that as a class, and San Clemente as a school community, the need to support the homeless and needy people of our area.
It is not good enough to just learn about the issues, we need to act now.