Biodiversity is the whole variety of living organisms, the genetic difference between them and the communities and ecosystems in which they occur.
It is the natural wealth of the earth that supplies important ecological services to sustain all life on earth.
Ecological services include cycles such as cleaning the air, supplying us with oxygen, exchanging the energy from the sun, purifying water, feeding the soil, rooting the soil, pollination of plants etc.
Our biodiversity is threatened in many ways, which has a direct impact on the ecological services. Some of the threats are habitat loss due to human development and expansion, invader species that encroaches the natural vegetation, pollution, and poaching and over consumption of resources.
We offer eleven programmes in the Biodiversity Room applicable to the school curriculum.
These programmes are:
| Senses: Learners discover their senses using our garden. | Grade 1 | Life Skills |
| Healthy food in our garden: It starts with a puppet show of baboon and the rabbit. Learn about food groups that give you energy, protect your body and make you grow. Meet these plants in the vegetable garden. | Grade 2 | Life Skills |
| Growing a garden at home: Looking at different farming methods and learn how to grow an organic garden at home. Children get the opportunity to sow some seeds in the garden. | Grade 4 | SS |
| Interconnectedness, food chains and pollination | Grade 5 | NST |
| Medicinal plants: discover medicinal plants in our garden and how you medicine was made in the past. Also learn about the traditional healers and sustainable harvesting of plants. | Grade 6 | SS |
| Soil is life: how was soil formed, structure of the soil, types of soil, how to make compost, discover the life in the soil | Grade 5, 8 | NS, SS |
| Vegetation types: Take a tour through South Africa and discover how different vegetation regions (biomes) have adapted to their climate. | Grade 5 | NST |
| School yard life: Investigate different habitats in the school garden, classification of species ecology and food webs. | Gr 7 | NST |
| The evolution of plants: How plants developed over the ages from the simplest form of life to the rich diversity of flowering plants we have today. The effect of the sixth distinction on this diversity | Gr 11 | Life Sciences |
| Trees: Learning about Indigenous Knowledge by meeting some of the trees and their uses in the garden. | Gr 10 | Life Sciences |
| Permaculture Garden Trail, Soil degradation and sustainable ways of agriculture | Gr 11 | Life Sciences |
Biomes in the garden
To demonstrate different eco systems and how they function we have developed a number of biomes or vegetation types in our garden.
These biomes are used in our lessons to give children an overview of the rich biodiversity in our country.