23rd February:

The ecoschools service group is centred around the international system organised by the Foundation of Environmental Education (FEE), and at the end of two years, we’re aiming to get accredited with a Green Flag–to mark our campus officially becoming an eco school.

Recently we learned that the deadline for submission is approaching rapidly–April 1st. We were already working with a tight schedule, having missed the entire first semester of this year however, the new deadline gives us 5 service sessions until completion. Meaning 4 steps in 5 sessions. Which is ambitious, but with a good plan and focused service sessions, we’re sure to make headway.

Reflections from the second meeting and more information:

Yesterday was the second official service meeting we had. I’m currently involved in a service group called Eco-schools, which I am coleading. Ecoschools is a relatively new student-led service group that we only started last year, however it’s an international program that has been running in over 64,000 schools.  There are two initial years within which we follow the seven steps which are as follows:

1. Form a Committee
2. Environmental Review
3. Action Plan
4. Monitoring and Evaluation
5. Curriculum Work
6. Informing and Involving
7. Eco-Code

By the end of last year we’d finished step three and were planning on working on step four this year. However, because of the covid situation we weren’t able to have service the entire semester, and so have only started now.

Our actions are three-pronged, divided into the following groups which were established after our Environmental Review: Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Pollution. Our first session was spent introducing everyone to eco-schools and what our goals were, whilst our second session was really when we started to make changes. The Climate Change group began creating so-called weekly ‘eco-tips’ to share with the school community through the daily bulletin. Our Biodiversity started planning a school event where we hope to engage people more with the campus we learn on and all the flora/fauna found here. And Pollution kickstarted a a list of classroom guidelines entitled ‘green code’ which we aim to have implemented around school and could aid in reducing our school’s carbon footprint. Moreover, the service group is working on re-forming a school committee for the new year and hope to have our first meeting in the near future.

These first two sessions have been productive and I’m excited to see where else our members can take this service.

 

Biogas Plant:

In the past, I’ve been involved with the Recycling and Sustainability service group, and a few years ago a small biogas plant was established behind the science labs as a solution to the food waste our campus produces. The system worked well and while we were still figuring out how to collect all the food waste and ensuring that it was properly sorted, we still had a working plant and even made popcorn during service hours from the gas produced by the plant.

Yet, once covid hit and we moved to online school the biogas system eventually ran dry. Currently we’re working on starting up the plant again, and the ESS class and Recycling service group has been feeding it cow dung so that the system can start working.

And so, although in Ecoschools we’ve been organising sustainable snacks like bananas during service meetings, that still produces food waste. Hopefully, in two weeks time or so, we’ll be able to dispose of that in a safe system that even gives gas which can be used in a variety of ways.

Here’s a link to the official recycling page that has a section about the biogas plant for more information: https://recycling1011.wordpress.com/