Thursday, November 19, 2015

Hoping for a 2nd Green Flag Award


In August 2013 ISKL was the proud recipient of Malaysia's very first Eco-Schools Green Flag award. We were proud at the time and excited all at once. In the acceptance speech, Deana Anuar ('14) and Tunku Alysha Alizan ('14) spoke of the honor and responsibility that this would bring, of the leadership that ISKL needed to show moving forward and of the need for collaboration outside of our school walls. 

Fast forward two and a bit years and our Green Council, responsible for documenting environmentally and sustainability based experiences under the Eco-Schools platform, are a completely different group. This year's team is led by Anne Wilson ('16) and Tiffany Tung ('17) and a very able group of 25 students. The team has been working diligently for the past two months to ensure that our application for a second Green Flag award is completed, evidence provided, and attention is paid to the proverbial dotting of our "i's" and crossing of our "t's". 

We now stand ready (with a few minor adjustments and practice-runs to go) to host the Eco-Schools Green Flag accreditation visiting team once again. On Wednesday, November 25, between 3:00 and 5:00 pm members of WWF Malaysia and university professors representing Eco-Schools Malaysia will be visiting our Ampang campus to see what we've been to for the past two years. The visit, of course, will include a tour of the campus (with requisite stops for "eco" highlights) as well as a formal presentation by members of the Green Council, HS Earth Club, Global Issues, Local Solutions class and Global Issues Club. 

The power of this experience is hard to explain. It is as authentic as authentic can get as the students themselves become the representatives of our entire institution and success and failure is defined not by their teachers but by external assessors. How they present, how they respond, their knowledge and skills related to sustainability in general and ISKL's ESD platform are critical in how we, as a school, are assessed. 

​In our constant striving to provide an education to our students capable of building global citizens, this is a big test and one that we are sure our students will shine in. Of course, there is no way of knowing whether we will be awarded the Green Flag award again, but that doesn't stop us from moving toward a sustainable future behind the leadership of some pretty terrific kids.

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