A passionate and enthusiastic parent at Saint Joseph’s Catholic Primary School P&F, located in Kununurra, contacted Ecoscape in 2018 to provide advice on how they could organise a nature-based play environment for their school community. The brief was simple; they wanted a nature playground master plan that provided visioning to guide future development within the school.

Ecoscape conducted a site visit which proved to be the most significant aspect of the project. The objective of the trip to Kununurra was to build relationships, with not only the school community but also to seek out and engage with the significant contributors to the school with whom St Joesph’s has already built strong relationships with. This included the Mirima dawang Woorlab-gerring Language and Culture Centre, the Miriuwung and Gajerrong Corporation, Wangari Art’s Centre, Revive Recycling, local suppliers and the local government authority, the Shire of Wyndham | East Kimberley.

This extensive consultative process provided the grounding and definition of values; to facilitate opportunities for the master plan vision to integrate country and Miriwoong culture and language into not only their curriculum, but also their school setting. The combination of the nature playground spaces, the external learning hubs, bush tucker gardens, the language nest program and the potential new collaborative art and recycling programs have defined a pathway for the school community to facilitate an amazing integration of culture and country within the school environment in an artistic and sustainable way.