The Eco-Schools program is a global sustainable schools program that aims to empower students to be the change that our sustainable world needs. There are 7 steps to become an Eco-School:

• Form an Eco Committee

• Carry out an environmental review

• Make an action play

• Monitor and evaluate

• Link to the curriculum

• Inform and involve

• Produce and Eco code.

Becoming an Eco-School is a long process of evaluation and implementation. However, it will be worth it in the end as OSC would have embarked on a journey to improve our environmental impact, and we would carry a flag to show for it. As of now, there are no Eco-Schools in Sri Lanka, so our school will be the first. 

 

 

A meeting was then held for The Eco-Schools service group is comprised of two groups. A smaller “executive” group of students that does most of the work, and a larger group that consists of parents, students, and teachers that discuss and share the opinion of the work that the executive group has done.

 

An email was sent to the entire OSC community asking if they would like to be a part of the larger Eco-Schools committee.

 

The main topic of discussion during the large group meeting was which five topics should the audit focus on. From the topics chosen, the smaller group created a questionnaire regarding the following topics:

• Energy usage at OSC

• Energy usage at home

• Waste at OSC

• Waste at home

• Food at OSC

• Food at home

• Biodiversity and nature at OSC

• Biodiversity and nature at home

• Transportation on campus

 

We felt that it was necessary to collect information about both home and school.

 

The results of the survey were not that eye-opening, however, there were a few results that we found interesting. These were:

• Over 50% of students who rode their bikes to school thought that there was no safe place to store their bikes.

• The school does not have a way to utilize rainwater

• Over 60% of people said that the recycling bins do not have the right waste in them.

 

The next larger meeting we had was essentially just a discussion of the results obtained from the survey and how we can improve any major issues in our community.

 

So far Eco-Schools has been quite successful in its efforts to help OSC to reduce its negative environmental impact.

 

Learning Objectives:

 

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process. 

Working with a lot of people at once through zoom has been quite challenging, however, we managed to overcome this obstacle and thrive.

 

LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences. 

Personally, I’ve attended every session and have participated to the best of my ability.

 

LO6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance. 

We focus a lot on waste and sustainability in Sri Lanka and how can we improve how the community impacts the environment around us. 

 

LO7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions. 

The aim of Eco-Schools is to improve the OSC communities’ environmental impact.