Will Johnston Email & Phone Number

I taught for 16 years in the unique place-based ‘Enviro Year’ program at The Geelong College and resigned at the end of 2023. Through engaging the heads, hearts and hands of the students in our care, the Enviro Year has blossomed into a rich and rigorous program that boasts high levels of student engagement and excellent academic outcomes. The garden we created with the students has been visited by many including ABC’s Gardening Australia (2017) and hundreds of educators and gardeners via workshops and tours. Teachers and students engage in the ongoing creation, re-creation and maintenance of the ‘outdoor classroom’.This year, I am taking a breather from the rigours of full-time teaching and have enrolled in the Nature-Based Leadership course at CERES in Melbourne. It's lovely!Meanwhile, Richard Hanley (fellow GC teacher) and I have launched The Faculty of Outside Learning (FOOLS) and a primary schools offshoot OWLS with TROWELS. Lately, we have been meeting with politicians, education managers, sustainability gurus, health care professionals and we seem to be rounding on a central theme: BRINGING IT BACK. We are striving for the day when ALL schools nurture a portion of their land that has been turned over to re-establishing its original vegetation. So much of what was here, has been wiped away, and schools can have a significant role to play in engaging in the restorative work that is now required.With areas of established indigenous vegetation on school land, many important educational goals across a broad range of areas can be readily met: - connecting with First Nations culture and heritage- valuing biological diversity- understanding living systems- acting for the environment - mental health - reconnecting young people (and their teachers)with natureFurthermore, engaging in such meaningful, purposeful, relevant, hands-on, projects brings heightened student engagement and improved academic achievement.We will be working in schools with educators, young people and gardeners who wish to activate every corner of their school land for learning.