A(LIVE) HIVE

Jazmin Gavin, Tanya Jolly, Matthew McKendry (UoN) and Emmanuel Thomas, Yulun Wu (UTS)

 The Phytoremediation Garden at White Bay Power Station will act as a catalyst for innovation and environmental technologies through educative programs. Using our assigned typology of the scientific grid, we proposed to take this theme further by creating, “Site as Experiment”. The Phytoremediation garden is one of the first in Australia of it’s kind and should be treated as an unexplored frontier, with data collection, 24-hour cameras as well as constant virtual access and occasional physical site access. The remediation of the post-industrialised site will be explored and celebrated through education.

Considering the site’s rehabilitation process as open source for learning, students (both primary & tertiary) as well as the general public have access to the site’s happenings through the Phytoremediation Garden Portal online, where the daily occurrences on site can be observed, from weather to changes in plants over time and season.

The students can collect  data themselves with the guidance of their teacher. The site & its processes can be used as a case study in science classes, with students learning about the effects of industrialisation and how and subsequent need for phytoremediation as a result of inorganic & organic substances contaminating the site . 

Students & the public can be taken on guided tours with Urban Growth, observing first hand the processes that are occurring & assisting in maintaining the garden between harvest performances. The grid may be a way of tracking the progress of growth of vegetation, as well as a means of testing the contamination of the site on a micro scale.