Broadening Horizons is an educational program designed to equip students with the skills and dispositions needed for a changing 21st century economy by engaging with industry partners and having students participate in ‘real life’ projects. Orbost Secondary College students have this year been working on their own ‘real life’ project, with great success.

Here, students, Mollie Welsh and Shannon Demiris, report on the project so far –
Broadening Horizons is an elective for year nine/10 students to work with an industry partner to find a solution to a problem. This year, the class has been working on two projects.

Parks Victoria is working with students around the rejuvenation of Peachtree Creek Reserve.

The students also have a self-designed project to raise awareness for shopping trolley theft and dumping.

In terms one and two there was lots of research and planning, which involved looking up statistics of how many shopping trolleys were dumped each year and how much they cost.

Every year 3000 trolleys are dumped in rivers, with the cost of collecting, maintaining and replacing trolleys $50million per year.

The Broadening Horizons class came up with the idea of holding an event that involves motorised trolleys to help raise awareness of theft and dumping.

Once all the planning and research was completed the class contacted FoodWorks, who kindly donated two broken trolleys.

Department of Land, Environment, Water and Planning (DELWP) also donated two defunct lawnmowers to help the Broadening Horizons students achieve their goal.

The class also contacted the Snowy River Mail, VicRoads and the police who came and talked to the students about publicity, road rules and regulations.

At the end of term two, the students started to build the motorised trolleys, which are still being worked on. The teams have developed hand clutches and throttles, attached the seats and removed the cutting decks. Both trolleys are operating, but the steering and brakes are still in progress.

The Broadening Horizons class would like to thank everyone who has helped make this project achievable and look forward to raising awareness about shopping trolley theft and dumping.

PICTURED: Trolley 11 team members, Jake Martin, Todd Healey, Daelan Sztynda, Shannon Demiris with the motorised shopping trolleys they have been developing as part of their Broadening Horizons project with the aim to raise awareness of shopping trolley theft and dumping.