2013-14 Sustainability & Service Learning Roundup

By the time you read this article you might already be en route to your perfect summer hideaway. Time perhaps to recharge, relax, see family and friends. As it should be. For every busy year needs a less busy time off and we all deserve it! This note serves as a quick review of sustainability and service learning initiatives/projects that have added a good deal to the culture of our school and the learning of our students. Here's a quick look of some of the highlights of 2013-14:

•       The presentation of the first Eco-Schools Green Flag award in Malaysia by WWF-Malaysia’s Executive Director/CEO, Dato’ Dr. Dionysius Sharma to our Green Council co-coordinators, Alysha Azizan (’14) and Deanna Anuar (’14)
•        Development of a new "Green Vision Statement" to be introduced next year
•        Development of new ESD standards
•        Creation of a new ESD diagram (based on UNESCO's dimensions of sustainable development
•        An Eco-friendly International Fest with use of bussing and without single-use plates/cutlery.
•        Year round Trash Free Fridays at Melawati (and almost every day in the Preps).
•        GAP service programs to 29 destinations across Asia.
•        Creation of an interactive garden at Melawati.
•        Earth Week (including a very successful Earth Hour).
•        MS Malaysia Week teams utilized new Sustainability Site Assessment Report forms.
•        River Rangers programs developed in grades 3, 7 and HS Environmental Studies supporting local water testing and data collection on behalf of the Global Environment Centre and Department of Irrigation.
•        Weekly visits by Ecocentric Transitions to our Prep classes focusing on positive interactions with nature (e.g. planting, vermicomposting).
•        The first Ampang community tree-planting event with the support of the local government (MPAJ) Youth and Community department.
•        The inaugural Eco-Schools Mini-Conference organized by the Green Council.
•        Initiation of a “Service for the Better” service learning program in grade 4.
•        Visit by the new campus architects to grade 5 and sharing ideas on energy use.
•        Continued collaboration with WWF Malaysia and Ecocentric Transitions to identify a site for use as a Nature Education Centre (for HS outdoor education and Environmental Studies classes).
•        HS & MS Student proposals for vermicomposting (grade 7 Global Issues) and solar charging stations (grade 9 EAL) have been received and followed up next academic year.
•        Integrated sustainability best practices for on-campus events, flights, etc.

It's been busy, no? Things are happening and the kids are growing. But then again, it's about to come to a screeching half with the coming of summer. We wish you all a friendly, happy, family and friend filled, green-as-can-be summer break!

Before we go... we're planning for next year.

Every day that passes one can hear the buzz in the hallways. It's the anticipation of a long vacation with little interruption and less worry about formal learning. Next week will bring with it a sudden quiet to the place. The first people, undoubtedly, will be getting ready to head home within hours of that final bell.  But work here continues over the summer.

From a sustainable front we are happy to know that a new off-grid solar powered set of fans (and charging plug) - financed by our Annual Fund donors - will be set up at the front of our campus. Both practical and educational the station should be ready to go when we all return from the summer. 

The hydroponics garden too, which was recently constructed by our Green Council, is slated to get a bit of a "fix up" with the installation of a water catchment area as well as some minor adjustments to the system, including the expansion of the spaces available for the plants to grow. By the time we return in August we hope to have a system that will be bearing fruit (or vegetables, actually) including lettuce for our cafeteria and act as an example for vertical gardens which was, after all, the intent of the Green Council's initiative. 

We will also be organizing early-August training for our Green Council to make sure that 2014-15 starts off right out of the starting blocks. The JUMP Foundation is coming in the very first weekend of school (August 8-9) to conduct leadership, action planning and facilitation training for out 15 Green Council executive members. We are aiming high for this group and hope to ensure that they have all the tools to do a great job next academic year through empowerment, skill building and reflection. It's the kind of capacity building that makes a big difference. 

So, while we are all roaming about and visiting family and friends, it's good to know that ISKL continues to establish both physical and human capacity. Have a wonderful final week!

Snippets of Sustainability & Service

As the year winds down from a sustainability and service learning standpoint we it gives a chance for respite - though there is still much happening - to recognize that the statement "less is more" is sometimes fitting at ISKL. In the past couple weeks a number of small activities and events have taken shape and are shared below:

• Grade 2 conducted some research on water use during tooth brushing by measuring water running continuously and only for rinsing. They found that by keeping the tap off until rinsing saved, on average, 85% of water!
• Grade 5 did some research of their own, focusing on ISKL's environmental indictor data (found here). Their responses revealed in-depth analysis of our school's energy, water, waste and air miles usage.
• A HS EAL asked the Sustainability Coordinator to come in and discussed a possible solar lap top charging station, its logistics, funding, etc. They will soon be writing a proposal for next year's Annual Fund. 
• The MS has just added a Grade 6 elective on Service Learning, which will be offered for the 2014-15 academic year. 
• A small group of grade 4 students decided to focus on hunger and reforestation, combining the two in a food drive and sapling/plant give away. The food goes to a local soup kitchen while saplings and plants are planted in our gardens and terraces!
• The Interactive Garden at Melawati is receiving lots of little visitors! During breaks students are seen there engaged in the sand pit, the tic-tac-toe area and looking at the flowers that are now in full bloom. 
• The HS Environmental Science class conducted water testing at several spots on the Ampang campus. 
• PJCC has undertaken planting of carrot, tomato and watermellon in the past few weeks. Largely the little sprouts are growing very well and we intend to transplant the watermellon into the Prep garden beds next week!

There are many more of these little snippets one could share, but often they take place inside classroom or in short walks into gardens. They are, as they should be, authentic moments of learning away from the limelight and off the scripts of articles. They are where learning really takes place: In the minds of children (and adults).

What Sets ESD Apart?

Earth Week came and went with the requisite discussions, keynote speakers, outings to green areas, expeditions in the wild, earth hours and water savings. There were conversations aplenty and there was a positive buzz, particularly at Melawati. Behind the scenes there were similar conversations concerning things like our Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) standards and benchmarks review. 

When ISKL created the ESD standards and benchmarks in 2010 they were based around eight UNESCO themes (e.g. water). Over the years these themes have become 11 and we hove found that ISKL would benefit from more "conceptual" ESD standards. 

A review of current departmental standards indicated that though many of departmental standards are excellent at a departmental level and sometimes include sustainability-related topics (e.g. gender equity, ecology) they lack the breadth that characterises ESD. 

ESD standards stand out from departmental standards in four distinct ways (either one or more can apply to a standard or benchmark):

1. They foster a sense of connection/belonging to the natural world. 
2. They focus on the interconnectedness of the different dimensions of sustainable development. 
3. They emphasise systems thinking. 
4. They emphasise inventing and affecting the future.

Certainly asking students to develop the knowledge and skills with regard to the items above is a tall order. It implies students ready to analyse and solve the world's issues. It implies an understanding of one thing affecting the other and an ability to project into the future. It implies active citizenship in a global world. It further assumes that, in order to perform these skills, students need to be adept at creative thinking, constructive collaboration, effective communication, living ethically and reasoning critically.  

Of course these are essentially the building blocks of success, both for individuals and for a collectively engaged world citizenry And all these, together, give us the tools to move in the direction we strive for: A sustainable future and, as we move toward it, an increasingly sustainable present.

Real World Green Thinking

By the time Earth Week concludes on Friday, it will have included a compilation of nearly 20 different events from nature outings to sustainable initiatives, from awareness projects to academic outcomes. It will also have highlighted two speakers who were powerful in their message:  Green isn't about tomorrow. It's about today and the "real world" is already moving in that direction. 

Ruben Cortes representing an organization named Earthship Malaysia spoke last week to our MS students before they departed for Malaysia Week. His speech, lauded by everyone in attendance, was about building housing in such a way as to minimize energy and water use while using locally-sourced recycled materials. His participation in the Earthshop program recently took him to the Philippines where the Earthshop crew helped build a community center in a small village that was decimated by Typhoon Hainan.  The simplicity or the architecture was impressive and left a theatre full of middle schoolers and their teachers in awe of such possibilities. His point was simple: Sustainable building practices are "here and now" not tomorrow or the future. 

CK Tang, of Veritas Environment, who is involved in the planning of our new ISKL campus spoke on Monday to our HS student assembly about the vision of a zero carbon, zero waste, zero water community, highlighting the powerful interconnections between the many factors in being "green".  Though more analytical and detailed, his address none-the-less inspired the crowd, particularly with his ability to bring it all together - from waste to energy to algae and solar - in an impressive crescendo of how zero-carbon/zero-water/zero-waste communities are being designed and built. Of course, it would be hard not to be tickled silly by the fact that our new campus offers a fairly substantial step toward reaching that goal. 

By bringing representatives from Earthship and Veritas ISKL was hoping that our students will recognize the power of sustainability in career opportunities, real life technology, and urban development and their effects on personal choices. It was a chance for them to see sustainability from the perspective of the practitioner, and that makes a big difference. 

When the MS students were about to embark on their travels around Malaysia they were asked to "leave the place better than you found it". When the HS students left their assembly they were asked to partake in helping our campus be as sustainable as possible. When our students graduate from ISKL we know that a significant part of their "exceptional education" is generated through such high expectations.

Earth Week Next Week!

Over the past few weeks we've been busily working "behind the scenes" to ensure that things are happening for Earth Week, which starts this coming Saturday, April 19th. For a good overview of the the week please feel free to visit the page here. But here are some of the highlights parents should know about:

A Few Highlights for Parents:

• Saturday
• The 3rd Annual KDE Loop Clean Up will take place on Saturday, April 19th at 9:00 am. Meet in front of the KDE entrance.
• Community Recycling at the Ampang campus from 9:30 to 11:30 am
• Broga View Hike (carpooling) - Meet at the Ampang Guardhouse at 8am (Cost: RM 70 per person)
• Sunday
• Climbing for Everyone!  For novices, experts and everything in between. For the young and young at heart. For individuals and families alike! Join the HS Cliffhangers for a half day of hiking fun!  Bus leaves at 8 am from Ampang bus area and returned before 1 pm.
• Tuesday
• Earth Hour. Between 8:00 and 9:00 am we're turning off them electronics and heading outdoors (if weather permits)! 

Week-Long

• Ampang
• Bring your own water bottles (and dishes and utensils?). In an attempt to tackle our water shortage problems, and to avoid the waste of water (and hygiene problems) or waiting for water supply to be re-started, we're asking all our students to bring their own water bottes. Paper cups will not be provided during Earth Week. Besides, it's a good habit to have!
• MS Malaysia Week. They're going out into the wild... exactly where young kids should be. Braving the elements and enjoying what nature has to offer. Education. Fun. Engagement.
• Melawati: 
• Trash Free Week!  We invite everyone to participate in going trash-less for the week. Combine that with healthy, natural snakes and you've got a real winning combination!
• Stay away from plastic bags! Our Grade 4 "Service for the Better" group is promoting the elimination of plastic bags. Please do what you can to support this worth-while initiative. 

There's more, but this are the things that we thought parents should know about. We have special events for students and announcements and quizzes and the like. Again, if you'd like to take a closer look, look no further then here. 

Of course, the true conversations are ones that could (and should) be taking place at home.  With the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just having released their latest report there is much to talk about!  

Have a safe, happy, wonderful and sustainable Earth Week!

JUMPing to New Heights

 

When the Environmental Coordinator position was initiated at ISKL the intent was to develop an ethos within our community to make positive change. Now nearly four years later we have made some significant inroads into the school's culture, but in doing so we are increasingly realizing that what we're doing, really, is allowing students to recognize their own power in affecting and inventing the future and, more precisely, making it a future they want to be part of. This element is increasingly transforming our efforts into an initiative to build capacity within our community and, in order to do that, build capacity within ourselves. Enter the JUMP Foundation, which visited ISKL's grade 4 last week.

The JUMP Foundation is an experiential education and development group that does a whole host of things - from one-day workshops to multi-day experiential excursions - aimed at empowering youth. Recently it has worked with the Global Issues Network (GIN) Conferences in the region with the specific task of developing leadership and facilitation skills in students running the GIN Conferences. 

Last week JUMP arrived with four educators and conducted three days worth of training. On day one they trained a number of teachers (largely grade 4) in facilitation and activities they would subsequently run with the students. Day two was a day largely revolving around the idea of community, teamwork and collaboration for students. Largely active and always challenging students were involved in a number of sessions whose primary focus was the understanding of personal attitudes and behaviors as well as inter-personal interactions and dynamics. Day three was focused on leadership and action planning in preparation for Grade 5 and their duties with the Red Hats program.

How does this relate to sustainability and service?  Well, JUMP has a diagram of a mountain range that they use to discuss the hierarchy of capacity building. The range begins with personal development, then moves to community engagement before finally reaching a global citizenship issue. It became evident during their visit that  while we started out with the idea of educating for sustainability, giving students the tools for personal empowerment, leadership development and action is a necessary and fundamental first step to affecting the future in positive ways. 

We have great hopes for JUMP returning to ISKL next year. We are hopeful they will work with the Green Council and other service leaders on campus as we move ever so steadily toward building global citizens from the ground up.