Text Box: The long awaited children’s Organic Garden was officially opened at the Mustique Primary School in March. The Garden will be operated by the children as part of their school curriculum. Their studies will include sciences, as well as marketing, composition and math. Students will plan, plant and care for the garden, harvest, market, price and sell their produce. Environmental sciences teacher Mrs. Lystra Culzac-Wilson says the project will not only build environmental awareness and sensitivity in her students, but also give them a very useful life skills and an appreciation for the food they eat and the work that farmers are called on to do. Mr. Quammie of Mustique Company Grounds and Mr. Gideon Nash of Nature Care have been a big help to the project. Mr. Quammie’s staff did the heavy preparation work of breaking the ground and raising the fence. Mr. Nash, an experienced agriculture teacher, is acting as a classroom resource for the project. Text Box: Students hope to harvest and sell their first crops before the end of the school year. Mrs. Culzac-Wilson plans to add a herb garden as well as a medicinal plant bed to the primary vegetable garden. As they project develops, signs will indicate the plants underway and expected harvest dates as well as information about the plants and their uses. The entire school competed in a poster and logo competition. Text Box: The winning icons will be produced and mounted on the fence. The school children are excited about their project and hope to produce a line of T Shirts to promote organic gardening and the responsible use of resources. In an earlier project this year, special education teachers from the UK spent two weeks with the children creating artworks and poetry about the environment and the flora and fauna of Mustique. The senior classes produced two models of the island: one a model of Text Box: the best environmental practices. However, in an area with a relatively small population, that was ‘good enough’ for a time. Now, our island has more homes and more people visiting and occupying those residences over the entire year, these early systems cannot meet the demand. The Environment Committee recognizes this and Text Box: As the island of Mustique becomes more developed and our villas and life styles more sophisticated, the demands we put on the island with our waste water, merit our immediate attention. Traditionally, liquid waste was dealt with quite crudely; handled in soak away fields and septic systems. These are not Text Box: has made a priority to identify key alternative systems for home owners, for the Mustique Company residences and Lovell village. Information on these systems and best practices will be available very soon from the office and the Environment Committee. Text Box: Mustique Primary School Organic Garden Text Box: Waste Water Management Text Box: Page # Text Box: The Birds and the Breeze Text Box:

Mrs. Culzac-Wilson, Headmaster Belgraves and Basil Charles look on at the planting of the first seedling.

the island as it is today, and the second as it would be, were there no people on the island.

Environmental Sciences continues to be a priority and a favourite at Mustique Primary School.