1,000 native trees planted to turn school playground into tiny forest

Year 4 students at Broulee are transforming a barren patch of their playground to increase shade and biodiversity.

They worked with not-for-profit Microforest Collective on the project as part of their school curriculum.

The microforest will be used as a model for other schools across the country to follow.

Armed with wide-brimmed hats and child-sized gardening gloves, year 4 students on the NSW Far South Coast are swapping schoolbooks for tree saplings in a bid to boost biodiversity in their playground.

Students from St Peter's Anglican College at Broulee have spent the past week transforming a barren patch of their playground into what will become a self-sustaining microforest, to create a cooler, greener space.

"We're trying to bring back some of those endangered species that were lost in the 2020 bushfires, which was really unfortunate for all of our native animals and plants," year 4 student Zale Neal said.

It is the first school in NSW to partner with not-for-profit organisation Microforest Collective to research, design and plant a microforest as part of the curriculum.

Microforests, or tiny forests, are dense patches of native vegetation planted in urban or degraded areas, often no bigger than a tennis court.

Microforest Collective co-founder and landscape architect Edwina Robinson said the project used a Japanese planting technique known as the Miyawaki method, which involved densely planting a mixture of local species to accelerate growth.

She said the method helped the plants grow up to 10 times faster than normal, with the microforest expected to reach about 7 metres in height within two to three years.

The school project uses a water-harvesting system designed to overcome the site's sandy soil.

About 40 metres of underground trenches have been lined with clay to capture rainwater.

Ms Robinson said the aim was to create resilient green spaces that could also help communities respond to a changing climate.

"By careful plant selection and good improvement of the soil, we can really change our microclimate and we can start creating shade," she said.

Students, teachers and volunteers have spent the past week planting about 1,000 plants native to the region's endangered coastal littoral rainforest.

Year 4 teacher Danielle Phillips said the group visited local rainforests, identified species and researched the conditions different plants needed to survive, before picking up gardening gloves.

She said students then completed a site analysis before designing where plants should go using science, maths, geography and literacy.

"When we were looking at the area that we were going to plant, how big is the area? What are we going to do regarding the amount of mulch? OK, well, let's work out the volume," Ms Phillips said.

The collective now plans to use the project as a model for other schools.

Chair Jo Abbott said members had worked with the school's teachers to develop design templates and programs.

"If a school decided to take on a forest, they would be able to pick up these ready-to-go curriculum programs and then implement them within their school environment," she said.

Although Ms Abbott had doubts about how the students would feel getting their hands dirty, she said she was surprised by how enthusiastically they had taken to it.

"They are kids that spend a lot of time in nature, and enjoy being out doing hard work," she said.