The 2025 Environment grant winners have been announced!
Congratulations to all the winning schools and services.
Early Childhood Education and Care
Chrysalis Steiner Morning Star Kindergarten, Bellingen: Bringing in Bees and Building up our Food Forest
Our kindergarten aims to increase biodiversity and sustainability by creating rich outdoor learning spaces. With grant support, we will add native bee boxes and a frog pond, expand food production through herbs, vegetables, and fruit trees, and strengthen our composting and worm farm systems to move towards zero waste. Children will actively engage in growing, harvesting, and recycling, fostering environmental responsibility and a deep connection to nature. This project will enhance student wellbeing and learning, while supporting local ecosystems and positioning our school as a model for sustainable, nature-based education.
Peter Pan Community Preschool, Wangi Wangi: Little Sprouts, Big Futures
Our Project – Little Sprouts, Big Futures, aims to foster and embed environmental awareness and sustainable practices through hands-on learning experiences and fun. The grant will enable our not-for-profit preschool to facilitate composting stations, recycled water tanks, and a sensory garden into our nature-based play curriculum. Through guidance and intentionality, children will develop respect for nature, families will engage in experiences and take-home produce, and our wider community will benefit from a greener, more connected environment. This initiative will promote lifelong eco-friendly habits, support biodiversity and strengthen ties by encouraging collective action toward sustainability, starting with our youngest learners and extending to families and the broader environment.
Primary Schools
St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, West Kempsey: Future Farmers Floodproof Garden
Our project aims to rebuild the school garden to be flood-proof and productive by combining hydroponics with movable garden pods. This will allow students to compare plant growth in soil and hydroponic systems, deepening their understanding of plant needs, sustainability, and innovative agriculture. Through hands-on investigations, students will explore STEM concepts such as biology, chemistry, and engineering while fostering environmental awareness. The flexible garden design ensures resilience against flooding, benefits the school community by creating an engaging outdoor learning space, and equips students with skills for a more sustainable future.
Catherine McCauley Catholic Primary School, Orange: Critters Cafe
The aim of the Garden Corner, incorporating the Critter Café, is to sustainably use the food waste that a school of our size creates each week. We have environment officers (Yr 6) who oversee and monitor the removal of food scraps from the playground to the Critter Café (tumbleweed worm buffets in garden beds). This, in turn, will enrich the soil and assist in the growing of produce.
St Joseph’s Primary School, Charlestown: Native Bees and Flower Corridor
Our project aims to restore pollinator populations and strengthen biodiversity at our school following the varroa mite’s impact on the Newcastle bee communities. Students will create native flowering corridors in garden beds and around an existing yarning circle, attracting both native and European bees. The addition of native stingless bee hives will provide hands-on learning about pollination, ecosystems, and sustainability. Benefits include enhanced student engagement in Science and Geography, increased environmental awareness, and stronger community connections through collaboration with Aboriginal educators and local suppliers. The project promotes ecological stewardship, creating lasting environmental benefits in our school grounds and educational benefits for students learning about bees and native vegetation.
Secondary Schools
Caroline Chisholm College, Glenmore Park: Ready, Set, Organise: Recycling, Composting
Our campus is committed to increasing sustainability, regardless of socioeconomic barriers. As a result, we’ve launched “Ready, Set, Organise: Recycling and Composting,” which aims to increase composting and recycling throughout our school. Furthermore, this project aligns with the mission of the Independent Education Union’s environmental grant by empowering our students to steward better waste management practices. This program would add 5 x Red Cardboard, 5 x Recycle bins and 5 x Organic waste recycling and composting bins across our school.
Mount St Joseph’s Catholic College, Milperra: Let it Grow: MSJ Community Greenspace
We aim to develop a series of green spaces (vertical garden/living wall, fresh produce garden and interactive Science/Technology teaching and learning garden) that will support student learning and connect the MSJ community with the local community. Collaboration between our Science and Technology KLAs is ongoing in our school, as we already run a number of STEM initiatives. Students are designing green spaces as part of their CSIRO STEM CPP projects. These designs will be incorporated into the planning for the spaces.
Rosebank College, Five Dock: Nest and Seek
Our project aims to support sustainability and biodiversity at the college by designing and 3D-printing multiple bird boxes to be placed around the school grounds, fitted with wireless cameras to observe native wildlife. Students will engage in hands-on STEM learning through design, engineering, and digital technologies to create functional habitats for native wildlife. Lesson plans and resources will be integrated in Science and Technology programs, promoting environmental awareness and student engagement. This initiative will benefit students by linking classroom learning to real-world action, enhance the school’s sustainability efforts, and provide safe spaces for local wildlife to thrive.
Bring your sustainability initiatives to life!
Members are invited to put in an application for our annual environment grants program, sponsored by the IEU and Teachers Mutual Bank (TMB).
Apply for a minimum of six grants of up to $3,000 to get environment projects at your school, college or early childhood centre off the ground.
Teachers Mutual Bank are providing $18,000 to fund this grants program. TMB and the IEU have a proud history of funding education projects that kickstart sustainability projects.
Past grant-winning projects include:
- habitat and biodiversity conservation;
- tree planting;
- composting and vegetable gardens;
- water and energy saving initiatives;
- waste and recycling;
… as well as projects that draw on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander connections to land, community and the local environment.
The sky is the limit!
Winners will be contacted on Tuesday 21 October 2025, with a formal announcement proposed for the IEU AGM in Sydney on Saturday, 25 October.
- Applications open: Monday, 21 July 2025
- Applications close: Friday, 10 October 2025, 5pm
Eligibility: IEU/TMB environment grants are open to all IEU members. Grants will be assessed on the ongoing viability of the project, how it links to broader environmental education strategy, and how it will be implemented using effective project management.
Conditions: Successful 2025 recipients are expected to provide a presentation/update in September 2026 outlining how the project has proceeded and what the benefits have been. This update should include photos and/or videos. Photos/videos from 2025 grant winners will be presented at the October 2026 AGM.
Applications for the 2025 Environment Grants have now closed.
For further information please contact environment@ieu.asn.au.
Get inspired! Read more about our past grant winners:
- Top tips for applying for an Environment Grant (by 2021 winner, St Mary’s Pirates Kitchen Garden)
- Past Environment Grant winners (2022-24)
- 2021 IEU Environment Grant Winner: St Mary’s Catholic Primary School Pirates Kitchen Garden
- 2020 Environment Grant winners
- Valla Community Preschool: Cultivating a sustainable community