Trash Talk at Prep Senior

I had a delightful meeting with Kim McNaughton (Prep Senior teacher) this week on the issue of moving forward with several initiatives at Melawati. Among the things that we discussed was trash. No. Our students are not misbehaving and being rude. Quite the contrary. Both students and teachers are asking about how to be part of the solution to an age old problem: trash. 

For a couple years now the Prep Senior class has had trash-free Fridays whereby the students come to school prepared to have no trash at all. It's quite the exercise in problem solving as parents busily work a bit on their baking and food preparation at home, and utilise re-usable packaging to ensure that food stays fresh and the packaging is reused. It's quite a wonderful little tradition and everyone in that microcosm of the world seems to really appreciate what it teaches the children (and adults) as well the clean and direct answer to a major global issue. 

Which begs the question... could ISKL do this on a larger scale? Could different grades do the same thing, particularly at Melawati where food preparation in more home based?  One of my own goals for this year has been to reduce the waste going to landfill at ISKL. Between our composting from home program (which involves over 80 families, 4 classes and two vendors), our bio-digester and our ongoing recycling efforts at Ampang and Melawati (where a new recycling club has been launched this week) we are hopeful that reduction will come as a natural consequence. 

But the true solution lies in reducing, not in reusing or recycling. It is in reducing what we purchase makes a dent on the global demand and, though that, the pressure on resources. It's in reducing produce with extra packaging. It's in making more from scratch so our children can eat a healthy meal while minimizing the waste at home, at school, wherever. 

This is one of those things that we hope to keep moving toward. Less waste equals less pollution. Less pollution is something we all want. At Prep Senior the kids are learning that in person. What great lessons to be teaching 5 year olds! 

Saying No to "stuff"

If you are an athlete, a parent of an athlete or have a child who is going on GAP this year you may have received the word about t-shirts. Or rather word of the lack thereof. ISKL loves its t-shirts. International Fest has one. Student Council has one. Peer helpers have theirs. They certainly serve their purpose. But it's not inconceivable to have students on several teams, clubs and organisations to purchase one for each, ensuring a wardrobe healthy with (non-organic, imported) cotton. Add to that the travel shirts and the uniforms and ISKL families are probably buying a whole lot of clothing, no?  

The HS Activities & Athletics programs have, for some years, shown their support of carbon offset programs for their flights (as seen in past articles). Now they are taking on the world of excessive t-shirts head on. Trying to minimize the pressures of excess t-shirt purchasing and use, they are asking students to buy one shirt - just one - for all teams and trips. In an email sent our on Wednesday, Rob Hutterd (Assistant HS AD) shared a video on the topic. I opened it, secretly delighted by the message. It noted in that video (which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xEExMcjSkwA) that making one t-shirt uses 2,700 liters of water. I don't know if that's accurate, but given that it's a National Geographic video I'm willing to at least accept that it might be in the ballpark. Then I got my elementary math mind to work and did some quick calculations. 

450 GAP participants. About 600 student athletes. Total: 1,050. Multiply that by 2,700 liters and you have a whopping 2,835,000 liters of water saved!  From one decision!  My sincere hope is that the water saved makes its way into the small towns and villages of Malaysia where potable water might not be as simple as turning on a faucet in Ampang or Mont Kiara. 

I am hoping that this initiative - though contentious for some - might allow us a glimpse into our own consumer choices. Maybe one day, walking in a mall, our children might say "wow, that's an awesome shirt", closely followed by "but it's not worth the environmental cost, and I already have one".  

Keep Celebrating green by learning to say "no" when it makes sense to do so. 

At Melawati Recycling Comes of Age

Just last week we held a recycling "stakeholders meeting" at Melawati, including Vicky Sethuraman (Canteen Supervisor) and Sumathy Kandiah (Assistant to the Principal), Sophia (Head Cleaner),  Indran Savasivam (Campus Supervisor), Sharil (Sam's Snacks), our external recycling partner and our new Melawati Recycling Club advisor, Jorge Arismendi. Oh, and myself, of course! 

As I took a look around the table I realized just how much cooperation it takes to get things off the ground and create a well-rounded culture of recycling at our school. The curriculum covers it in many areas (the most obvious being the 3rd grade Reduce, Reuse, Recycling unit) and our facilities offer inviting sets of bins to attract passers-by to partake and to prompt our students to get into the mind frame of "taking care of this place". But over the years we have identified a slight disconnect between our 'covering' the topic in the curriculum and asking our staff to do the brunt of the work. Apart from being a shortcoming of our program, we also felt this was an excellent opportunity for our students to engage in authentic learning through doing (some might even call it service learning).

So starting this year we are initiating a Melawati Recycling Club!  Working with Jorge Arismendi, our cleaning staff, facilities people and our external partners the Recycling Club will be primarily responsible for paper collection from the different pods and photocopy rooms. They will also participate in a number of educational sessions where they will learn about the "behind the scenes" goings on of recycling. They will have the chance (hopefully) to visit a distribution station and/or recycling factory along the way. In line with our new focus on service learning club members will also conduct awareness campaigns as they themselves become teachers for adults (staff, cleaning staff, parents, etc.) and students alike!

We are hopeful that this will become a great cooperative effort and allow us not only to proudly say that recycling is alive and well at Melawati, but also that our youngest students are leading the charge to changing the world, one piece of paper at a time! The on-going amounts of recycling will be kept - as always - on the Sustainable ISKL website for anyone to follow. 

It's a small step for ISKL. It's a big step for our students' involvement in ensuring that we are, in fact, "taking care of this place" and becoming "social responsible world citizens". Not bad!

A New Beginning - ISKL Goes Green (Flag, that is!)

This past Wednesday ISKL hosted Malaysia's first Eco-Schools Green Flag award ceremony. As the recipients of the award is it difficult not to get caught up in the elation of the moment and it's easy to mistake that feeling, and the flag itself, as the final goal. But as the co-coordinators of the Green Council Tunku Alysha Azizan ('14) and Deanna Anuar ('14) stated, really this flag is just the beginning of something bigger than us. 

Part of their speech was spent highlighting the future plans for the Green Council and our participation in Eco-Schools programming. A recurring theme was our intent to expand beyond the borders of our campus walls, to engage with our community more, with our host country in a positive and meaningful way and to use student initiative as the starting point for big things. 

Our visitors were duly impressed with our students (how could they not be?), the program, the campus and the ceremony itself. A big thank you goes out to Hilda Alposilva and the Marketing Office staff for doing such a wonderful job with organizing things, but also to the facilities crew and the theater staff for all they do so well. 

As the adrenaline slowly dies off, and we recognize that a flag does not change our direction, we hope that our participation on the Eco-Schools program will allow us to start a new, to create a blueprint for school-community interactions and mutual goals. We move on, waving our new Green Flag!

P.S.

It is important to recognize the contributions of those who went before us, and whose decisions and efforts have led us to where we are today. Most notably, we would like to thank Mr. Paul Chmelik for his request of the -then - Green Team for "bold thoughts" in moving forward. We would also like to thank Mr. Angus Carmichael (my predecessor) for his vision in joining the Eco-Schools program and for setting the path for us to follow. Similarly, a big thank you also goes out to our previous Environmental Officers who played pivotal roles in our Eco-Schools initiatives and programming: Nathaniel Zacharias ('12) and Samantha Lee ('13). To those few, and the countless others who added their parts, thank you!

Starting Off the Year with a Big "Green" Bang!

Hello to one and all!  It's been a long, silent summer from the Sustainability and Service Learning office and it's time to get that rust off our keyboards and jump on that ever-fast-paced treadmill called working at ISKL and get the year off to a great start! 

And a great start it is!  As many of you know, ISKL was informed last May that it will become the very first Eco-Schools Green Flag recipient in Malaysia!  Now the stage is all set for that very recognition. The Eco-Schools Green Flag award ceremony will take place during a special HS Assembly on August 21st at 11:40 am. It will be awarded by the CEO of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Malaysia and we expect to have a representative of the Malaysian Ministry of Education present as well as our administration headed by our new - and very supportive - director Dr. Norma Hudson and our Green Council members. What a better way to start the year with a bang, and what better a recognition for the efforts of our Green Council and, more generally, the entire community!  

As a short but ongoing aside, and particularly for those who are new to ISKL, I'd like to share the online sources of information that you can use for updates on our sustainability and service learning programming:

• ISKL Sustainable ISKL website: https://sites.google.com/a/iskl.edu.my/sustainable-iskl/
• Sustainable ISKL blog: http://sustainableiskl.blogspot.com
• Sustainable ISKL Facebook page: www.facebook.com/sustainableiskl

On a related, but perhaps less historically important note, Community Recycling and our composting-from-home program are starting up this weekend as well. I invite each and every family to consider participating. Just let me know if you're interested!

Reflections on 2012-13

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June 2013 marks the end of the third year for the position of Sustainability & Service Learning Coordinator. Looking back, this has been a year of much work and evidence of great success, but there remains much to be done. Overall, the year was action-packed with sustainable and service learning projects, educational experiences and growth. 

On the positive side, 2012-13 has a number of key points to celebrate:

• The recognition of our sustainability and "green" efforts by the Eco-Schools program, who have identified us as the first "Green Flag" school in Malaysia. The award will be presented in August, 2013, nearly one year ahead of our originally targeted goal!
• The CIS/WASC note that sustainability education is well infused into the curriculum
• The introduction of color-coded destinations for the HS GAP program
• The introduction of the Plus (+) program for Malaysia Week sites
• The creation of new after-school programs (for next year) including an ES Recycling Club and a MS Roots & Shoots club
• Lots and lots of visits to classrooms to discuss sustainability and promote service-related learning
• The construction of the bio-digester at Melawati
• Solid moves forward in the Technology department to reduce server energy use
• Reduction of Ampang water use by over 40% year on year through infrastructure upgrades
• Introduction of our newly developed (and still in draft form) "sustainable procurement guidelines"
• Introduction of "Best Practices for School flights" to be utilized in the upcoming year
• The goal of "Platinum" standard for our new school campus and extensive conversations with architects, engineers, etc. about the best manner by which to achieve a high level of efficiency with maximum natural spaces
• The generation of a blueprint for service learning structure
• Introduction of new "Non-Recyclable" bins to complete the already existing bin sets, augmenting recycling efforts
• Reduction of carbon from air travel by over 20% from the previous year

 

On the continued "to do" list are issues related to:

• Systematic use of administrative structures (Leadership Councils) and student-based organizations (e.g. Green Council) to support each other in defining and moving forward in terms of ESD in the out of the classroom.
• The continued need to infuse ESD into the curricular documentation of the MS and HS offerings
• Systemic re-organization of our waste system to minimize landfill waste and maximize recycling, composting and appropriate disposal of chemical and toxic waste
• Infusing service learning across the school in a pre-defined systematic manner
• Continue efforts to reduce energy, water and air miles
• Continue assisting in the design and building of a new sustainable campus

 

The thing with sustainability is that the job is never quite done. As soon as we work something out, there is always something else to focus on. And so I suspect it will continue to be. We move onward. We move forward.

Enjoy the summer break and I look forward to a rewarding 2013-14!

ISKL: Malaysia's First Green Flag School!

After several year's worth of efforts, with the guidance of Mr. Carmichael (and now myself) and the leadership, over the years, of Nathaniel Zacharia ('12), Samantha Lee ('13)  Alysha Alizan ('14), Deanna Annuar ('14) and Diksha Srishyla ('14) but with valuable support of the Green Council members, community members, teachers, staff, parents, students - all of us - we have achieved a first for Malaysia, the Eco-Schools Green Flag!

This feat stands as the recognition that ISKL is well in it's way toward giving its students the necessary tools - knowledge, skills, empowerment and stewardship - to put "green" in everyday decisions. I am so very proud of all the students for leading the way with initiatives, action plans and a willingness to learn teachers who have done such a wonderful job of putting ESD into their curriculum, parents working on manners to create sustainable events, staff supporting sustainable changes, and administration working to establish best practices. I have always said that it takes a village and this award is the result of the fruitful efforts of all of us. 

In some ways this is just the beginning of putting ISKL "on the map" however. With the Green Flag comes great responsibility as well. We are, from here on forward, a beacon for sustainable education for those around us. It is a secret wish we've had for a while, and though a recognition such as this only validates what we've been doing, it gives us the impetus to become a leader throughout the country and region, to collaborate with schools and to spread the word outside our walls as well as within.

A big big thank you to Eco-Schools for providing us with this award (which will be formally given to us in a ceremony at the beginning of next school year), to the members of visiting delegation, to all of us who, in little steps, have come a long way!  Congratulations to the Green Council and to ISKL on being the first Green Flag school in Malaysia!