What does it mean to live sustainably? For most adults, the answer is tangled in policy, lifestyle choices and long-term consequences. For Year 4 students, it begins with imagination – and a cardboard house.
Each year, Year 4 students take part in Green Dream Homes, a STEAM-based project where they design, build and present model homes that reflect a future they want to live in. The project invites students to become architects, planners and storytellers.
They sketch blueprints, write persuasive applications to a mock council and build homes complete with interiors, gardens and transport solutions. Guided by mentors including architect Anthony Burke, known for Restoration Australia and Grand Designs, students learn that design is not decoration – It is a responsibility. Burke’s involvement, now in its ninth year, brings professional insight to the classroom, reminding students that ideas have consequences and creativity begins when we understand our community and our part in it.
Recently, these homes took centre stage in a playful auction, where parents bid for their favourites. While the process is light-hearted, it reinforces the seriousness of the thinking behind each design – sustainability as a lived value, not just a concept.
This project reflects IGS’s broader commitment to sustainability, STEAM learning and promoting worldly thinking. It encourages students to engage with global challenges through local action, to think critically about the future and to see themselves as active participants in shaping it. In doing so, Green Dream Homes becomes more than a classroom activity – it becomes a blueprint for responsible citizenship.
