Primary school programs
The following programs are designed to incorporate the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (Aus VELS). They provide an excellent means of teaching across the Domains in an integrated way.
Immerse your class in the magical world of a garden where experience-based learning creates connections through gardening, play, the inspiration of story and the child’s imagination. Each program is led by a Royal Botanic Gardens Primary teacher and can be adapted to suit individual group needs.
Cranbourne programs
- Carbon Futures - New Program
- Art of the Australian Garden – New program
- Eco-spirituality
- Biodiversity
- Conservation Matters
- Sustainable Gardening (Water in a Dry Country)
- Climate Change
- Seed to Tree
- Wetlands
- Shared Country - Indigenous program
- Wilams not Wigwams - Indigenous Program
- Bushfoods - Indigenous Program
- Minibeasts
- Australian Environments
- Fire in the Australian Landscape
- Scents and Senses
- Australian Garden Christmas
Melbourne programs
- Working Wetlands - New program
- Italian program - Nonno's Garden - New program
- Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker
- The Rainforest
- Biodiversity on the Yarra
- Water, Plants, Life- Explore Guilfoyle’s Volcano
- Introduction to the Gardens
- Minibeasts
- Food Forest
- Sustainable Gardening
- Climate Change
- Garden Art
- Christmas Program
- Plantworks
- Plants and Animals
- Water Conservation using Graeme Bases book ‘The Waterhole‘
- The Paradise Garden by Colin Thompson
- Belonging by Jeannie Baker
- Aboriginal Resource Trail
- Indonesian program - Ayo ke Kebun Raya
- French program - Mille Feuille
- The Magic Garden
- Darwin's Garden
Session times
All programs 1 hour and 45 minutes in duration.
10.15am – 12.00 noon
12.30pm – 2.15pm
Program prices (domestic)
$10.50 per student (includ. GST)
$189.00 per class, for small groups (Minimum Charge)
Teachers / Adults free
Bookings and information
Melbourne: (03) 9252 2358
Cranbourne: (03) 5990 2245
Email: education services
Melbourne suggested activities
- Stroll down to the lake and visit the swans and the eels.
- Visit the rainforest habitat in the Fern Gully and discover the rainforest plants and animals that live there.
- Journey up to the Temple of the Winds and take in the breath taking views.
- Take in the peace and serenity of the Gardens and find a shady tree to relax under.
Cranbourne suggested activities
- Wander up to Trig Point Lookout to take in the amazing views from the mountains to the sea. On a clear day you can see forever (Mt Macedon, the You Yangs, Phillip Island and the City).
- Cool your feet wading in the marked section of the Rockpool Waterway.
- Climb on redgum Hortasaurus and slide down his big red tongue in the Childrens Backyard.
- Discover the fossils and footprints in the shady Desert Discovery Camp sand pit.
- See if you can work out the answers to Grubby's questions on the cool Grubby Map.
Primary Education Programs flyer
Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne (MS Word - 911 kB)
Carbon Futures - New Program
Climate change is a global challenge impacting all countries but in different ways. This program explores some of the social justice issues raised by climate change and some of the opportunities to make the world a more interesting and a better place. Find out what students in East Timor are doing to improve their lives and how you might help. Discover the carbon cycle and how plants can help moderate climate change. Experiences include demonstrating carbons capacity, measuring carbon in trees and fieldwork assessment of carbon in forests. Follow and contribute to student actions in our neighbouring country East Timor.
Problem based learning units
WithOneSeed video
Art of the Australian Garden – New program
Join us in a visual discovery of the Australian Garden and be inspired to new creative heights by contemporary interpretations of the Australian landscape. Using textural and organic materials as well as photography, discover and depict your own connection to this exciting environment.
Activities include ochre mapping of country using traditional materials, photography throughout the garden, and creating a sculptural ground mosaic.
Eco-spirituality
This program encourages students to make a deep connection with nature by exploring Indigenous spirituality, our reliance on the environment for survival, the interconnectedness of all living things and the beauty and diversity in nature which will lead to stewardship of the environment. Experiences include creating a ground mosaic, sensory perception, potting up a habitat/bush food plant, a guided meditation and discussion of an environmental story.
Biodiversity
Investigate just how many plants and animals make up a healthy plant community and find out what you can do to add to the mix. Conduct your own biodiversity survey, capture and name your discoveries. Pot up a plant to diversify your garden and find out some secret ways to house new neighbours on a discovery walk.
Conservation Matters
How can we become active conservationists at a local level and be a part of positive global change? This program provides an authentic hands-on learning experience focusing on Victorian environmental issues and providing strategies for action at home.
Experiences include discovery walk, treasure box, potting up native plant and worm farming.
Sustainable Gardening (Water in a Dry Country)Gardening is a productive and creative form of expression. Learn how to be creative while you help conserve our precious biodiversity and our water resources. This is a tactile and socially instructive session. Experiences include group workshopping a landscape design, mulch sculpture construction, potting up a plant and worm farming.
Climate Change
Climate change is now accepted as a reality that we have to address globally. Find out what it means for us and what we can do about it individually, in a very positive sense. Take home a drought tolerant, carbon fixing plant, find out how to creatively manage and store water while reflecting on the bigger picture solutions.
Seed to Tree
Plants are really amazing, especially when you explore their role in sustaining and creating the biosphere. Find out how plants function, and pot up a seedling. Discover the huge diversity of plants in Australia and their adaptations to the Australian environment. Experiences include potting up a plant, discovery-walk, observations and sensory exploration of plants.
WetlandsExplore our wetlands by ponding for water creatures and testing the water quality. Experiences include a discovery-walk, measuring turbidity, pH, temperature, conductivity, nitrogen levels and identifying aquatic animals.
Shared Country - Indigenous program
Discover the importance of the environment to the Kulin people and how plants were used for food, fibre, medicine and tools. Experiences include a discovery walk, examining artefacts, ochre art and plant food tasting.
Wilams not Wigwams - Indigenous Program
This program is a team building, group-working exercise that teaches co-operative learning skills. It does so in an Australian cultural and bush setting, making use of bush materials collected from on and off site.
Experiences include cultural introduction/discussion, discovery walk and wilam construction.
Bushfoods - Indigenous Program
Discover some of the indigenous food plants of the region and Australia generally. Find them growing in the bush and the garden and learn how they are prepared. Experiences include discovery walk, grinding and tasting wattle seed, Lemon Myrtle Tea and other plant leaf products.
Minibeasts
Investigate the creatures we share our bush and wetlands with, exploring how they live and their lifecycles. How do minibeasts help our gardens grow and why do plants attract or repel them? Experiences include ponding, discovery-walk, animal observations and sensory exploration of plants and water.
Australian Environments
Explore the award winning contemporary cultural interpretation of the Australian flora and landscapes and our remnant native bushland. Discover and identify iconic Australian plant and animal communities as they occur in the Australian Garden.
Experiences include a discovery walks in the Australian Garden and the remnant bushland, treasure box and ponding.
Fire in the Australian Landscape
Observe first hand, how fire stimulates Australian plants to set seed and grow. The RBGC uses fire as a management tool to encourage biodiversity and provide habitat for native mammals. Measure the total fire fuel load, observe the weather conditions and learn about plant adaptations to fire.
Experiences include a discovery-walk, exploration of plant adaptations, succession after fire and calculating the overall fuel hazard for a set site.
Scents and Senses
Immerse yourself in sensory bliss. Explore the Australian Garden with all of your senses in a manner that will delight, excite and surprise you with its depth and intensity. Smell and taste the flavours of Australia, see the clear, strong light illuminating our landscapes and hear the sounds hidden by our everyday rush. Above all, feel more than the textures of a time worn land, feel the excitement of a special place. Experiences include ochre painting, potpourri and bushfood tasting.
Australian Garden Christmas
Celebrate Christmas and the end of the year in the new and exciting Australian Garden. Discover our Australian Christmas plants, make a gumnut art Christmas decoration and potpourri.
Working Wetlands - New program
This program examines the vital resource of water and how the Royal Botanic Gardens uses water saving and water quality improvement strategies. The program also explores how to create sustainable habitats for indigenous plant and animal communities in a suburban environment. Students will participate in a variety of activities including ponding for fresh water invertebrates, observations of wildlife habitats and developing ideas for future sustainable resource use.
Italian program - Nonno's Garden - New program
The Italian LOTE program has been designed to introduce to students the important relationships, between plants and people in everyday life in Italy. The program focuses on Italian herbs and vegetables, how they’re grown in Nonno’s garden and put to use in Nonna’s kitchen and herbal remedies. Relevant Italian words are incorporated throughout the program. Activities include working in the kitchen garden and propagating a food plant to grow back at school.
- Teachers kit (MS Word - 557 kB)
- Finger puppets (PDF - 383 kB)
- Slideshow (PDF - 2.98 MB), (MS PowerPoint - 2.65 MB)
- Classroom activities - beginners (PDF - 6.10 MB)
- Classroom activities - Intermediate (PDF - 1.78 MB)
- Extension activities - beginners (PDF - 110 kB)
- Extension activities - intermediate (PDF - 356 kB)
- Story book (PDF - 13.3 MB)
- Storybook activity (PDF - 17.9 MB)
Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker
Share the story and rediscover it's secrets. Discover the amazing plants of the Australian rainforest and how the Aboriginal people used the rainforest. Find out how plants and animals interact, collect garden treasures to make a landscape collage.
The Rainforest
Experience a rainforest in the centre of Melbourne! Within the Gardens there is a huge diversity of rainforest plants from Australia and around the world. Students will explore rainforest structure and ecology and the importance of rainforest conservation. Students make forest animals from plant materials.
Biodiversity on the Yarra (Prep–6)
Where in Melbourne would you go to see spoonbills and night herons feeding at the billabong, eels and long necked tortoises swimming in a wetland or even powerful owls and a reed warbler. As you walk through this revegetation area you will be able to observe some of the interrelationships between the indigenous flora and fauna using binoculars to explore life cycles and food chains. Students propagate an indigenous plant to take back to school.
Water, Plants, Life- Explore Guilfoyle’s Volcano (Years 3-6)
Water and plants are vital for life on earth, especially now with increasing population and a changing climate. This program looks at the interrelationship of these two important elements, and how people can grow more plants with less water. Students will do hands-on activities involving handling different types of soil and propagating a water conservation plant.
Introduction to the Gardens
This program provides an introduction to the wondrous world of plants. Students will make pot pourri in the Herb Garden, plant a seedling while learning about plant structure, survival and the importance of plants in our lives.
- Teachers Kit (MS Word - 1.98 MB)
- Program Snapshot (MS Word - 921 kB)
- VELS Program Guide (MS Word - 48 kB)
Minibeasts
This program provides students with the chance to observe minibeasts in different habitats and explore their connection to the plant world. Investigate a worm farm, explore a water habitat and hunt with a magnifying glass in the leaf litter of the Gardens. Activities include taking a closer look at the role of minibeasts in soil and making a minibeast repellent pot pourri to take home.
Special full day program, Minibeasts and Bugs 3D @ IMAX
Food ForestThis program makes hands-on and sensory connections between food and plants, giving students the opportunity to observe carnivores and herbivores, and understand nutrient cycles and food chains. Exploring the harvest of the Kitchen Garden students make connections between plants, healthy diets, organic and sustainable gardening. Activities include propagating a food plant to grow at school, exploring culinary herbs in the Herb Garden and finding out what worms eat.
Sustainable Gardening
The basic skills of good gardening practice are taught during this hands on program, exploring water conservation, organic gardening methods, composting and worm farming. Whilst exploring the Children’s Garden and the wider Botanic Gardens students will consider ideas for designing or developing their own garden. Activities include the propagation of a plant to take home.
Climate Change
Climate change is now accepted as a reality that we have to address globally. Find out what it means for us and what we can do about it individually, in a very positive sense. Take home a drought tolerant, carbon fixing plant, find out how to creatively manage and store water while reflecting on the bigger picture solutions.
Garden Art
An arts-based program giving students opportunities to respond to inspiring environments and garden experiences, creatively, cooperatively, imaginatively. In Andy Goldsworthy style students create group collages from plant materials, explore cycles and spirals in nature and create leaf rubbings.
Christmas Program
Experience the beauty of the Christmas season in the Royal Botanic Gardens. Discover the plants that are the symbols of Christmas. Students will make a Christmas pot pourri in the herb garden and a Christmas decoration using plant materials.
Plantworks
Explore the structure and function of plants and investigate amazing adaptations from a variety of ecosystems. Students look at plants under microscopes, pot a seedling and visit the Tropical Hot House and the Herb Garden.
Plants and Animals
The focus of this program is the fascinating plant and animal interrelationships that exist in garden environments. Students will look closely at soil, make their own creature from plant materials, and visit the Tropical Hot House to meet carnivorous plants.
Water Conservation using Graeme Bases book ‘The Waterhole‘
Why is water so important? Children will make the vital connection between water and life on earth, looking closely at life in and around a billabong. Learn about and propagate a water conservation plant, examine pond life and look at plants from around the world that feature in Graeme Base's book. Students will collect plant material to create a collage at school.
The Paradise Garden by Colin Thompson
Why are plants so important in our lives? Through this beautiful book children will consider plants as homes, as food and explore their fun and fantasy elements. Children will explore plant and animal connections and the role of Botanic Gardens as habitat for wildlife in cities. Activities include propagation, art and building with bamboo.
Belonging by Jeannie Baker
By growing healthy gardens for ourselves we can also grow gardens for other living things. Discover the delights of growing your own green space and the importance of green spaces in cities. Gardens are also a great way to grow friendships! Experiences include story reading, cubby making, vegetable potting and exploring.
Aboriginal Resource Trail
The Aboriginal Resource Trail is designed to give students a greater understanding and respect for Aboriginal culture, particularly of the local Kulin Nation. Students will understand the significance of Waa (the raven) and Birrarung (Yarra River). Experiences include making and using ochre paint, string-making and a hands-on exploration of tools. The emphasis is on diversity and examining sustainable land practices used by Aboriginal people.
Special full day program, a Koorie Heritage Trust program
- Teachers Kit (MS Word - 6 MB)
- Program Snapshot (MS Word - 106 kB)
- VELS Program Guide (MS Word - 68 kB)
Indonesian program - Ayo ke Kebun Raya
A visit to the Gardens provides a stimulating learning context that extends beyond the classroom and is designed to engage students' interest through active involvement. Activities include exploring the many qualities of bamboo, potting a herb to take home and tasting lemongrass or ginger tea.
French program - Mille Feuille
Explore the sensory delights of herbs and explore the role they play in French cooking and perfume, looking at potpourri, tisanes, and bouquet garni. Propagate the beginnings of your own French garden and see what's ready to be harvested in the potager! See what inspired the French Impressionists and try your hand painting en plein air.
The Magic Garden
With a sense of adventure and weaving their own magic, children meet the plants who live in the garden and find out what they have to say. Students create crowns with plant material collected in the Children’s Garden and make pot pourri in the Herb Garden. A sensory focused exploration of the Gardens.
Darwin's Garden
Celebrate the legacy and thinking of Charles Darwin, an extraordinary man. Find out more about the big ideas that changed the world like, 'natural selection'. Darwin was a passionate observer fascinated by plants and the world around him. Explore amazing plant behaviour through observation, critical thinking and scientific inquiry. Techniques explored mirror Darwin's own work such as: creating a nature journal, making plant specimens, using microscopes and observing plants in action. Discover the scientist in us all.
Last updated 26 Feb 2013
