Earth Week: Celebrating Nature; Celebrating You.

This week - Earth Week - has seen a busy schedule including, of course, our MS visits to the many beautiful and varied natural settings of Malaysia. The stories the students and chaperones come back with are sure to indicate that exposure and appreciation for nature, collaboration and personal growth all danced together in creating worthwhile educational experiences. There is a reason why experiential education is so powerful and that is often due to challenging circumstances, exposure to nature, working in teams, and using all one's senses to become aware of one's world and place in it.

For those who were not able to head out into the wild, there was plenty to do here on campus as well. Weekend climbing and hiking trips: The Farmer's Market and Community Recycling; ISKL Earth Hour; half day trips to FRIM; awareness videos at the HS; the uniform swap at the ES; a number of competition based games at HS; grade 1 trees planted at the ES; the careers and sustainability assembly in the HS; many curricular connections and conversations throughout the school. 

And yet, for many students it might not seem like it's that different. It's sort of like "business as usual" with a bit of an added twist. There are no big banners. No "one off" day-long special events. There are just many many small things to add value to the fact that we already do so much throughout the year. Nearly every person at ISKL participated in some way or another and that is what makes Earth Week so important. 

After all, how do you celebrate something while trying to minimize your impact?  How do we increase awareness without increasing the environmental price tag?  In our case, it's by utilizing means that already exist, and avoiding creating new ones. It's by adding a "stealth" factor to celebration of something important. It's by doing little things. Lots of 'em.

Thank you to all those to participated in the Earth Week events. And thank you to all of you who take the time to talk to those around you. Thanks for spreading awareness and for your personal choices that matter.