Volunteer Day at the Port Phillip EcoCentre with Amadeus Cares

For our latest volunteer session...

We got to head down to the Port Phillip EcoCentre; their brand-new sustainable building, which just finished construction in July 2025. The place is genuinely impressive; the whole building is designed to be net zero on energy and water. It's built using Cross Laminated Timber, is all-electric, and has enough solar panels and batteries to actually produce more energy than it uses. What really stood out, though, was their new Citizen Science Lab. It's the first purpose-built lab of its kind in Australia.

Our day was split into three parts.

First, we built nest boxes for microbats. Microbats are all over Melbourne and they eat a huge amount of insects, especially mosquitoes. These specially built boxes give them a safe and weather-proof place to live.

Amadeus Cares team members getting stuck into some construction

Me with the freshly built box before adding some linseed oil to the outside for weather protection.

As a team, we got to assemble a bunch of nest boxes.

which was easier than expected as the Port Phillip Men’s Shed had pre-cut the timber for, plus we had Claire on our team, who’s a regular at the women’s shed. These boxes can house about 30-50 bats and get put high up in trees around Port Melbourne, St Kilda and other parks around Melbourne. Once the assembly was done, we gave them a quick sand to tidy them up and covered the outside in linseed oil to ensure the last a while in the weather.

Next up we went on a survey walk around the botanic gardens, where the EcoCentre gave us tonnes of information on the invasive species in the area and some indigenous plants and some traditional uses some plants have, like helping with teething pain, especially interesting with a teething baby at home.

The volunteer group propogating some indigenous plants

Amadeus Cares group propogating some indigenous plants

Finally we went onto propagating some indigenous plants.

We spent an hour or so separating and potting a bunch of seedlings. The team at the EcoCentre crew will grow them until they're ready to be planted out in local reserves to help restore the original plant life. I cannot for the life of me remember the plant name, but it was great to get our hands dirty.

All in all, it was a solid day. It's nice that work gives us the time to get out and do something practical like this and step away from the computer screen. Big thanks to the incredibly knowledgeable Port Phillip EcoCentre team for having us.