Hosted by SALL , contributed by VivianaPetinou on 19 January 2023
The school’s overall goal was to raise awareness concerning key environmental problems (e.g. plastic pollution, food wastage) and promote collaborative work for these issues by involving the local community. Hence, the school organized an eco-challenge month during which challenges/actions related to different environmental problems took place in the school and the local community in collaboration with different societal actors (e.g. parents, the town hall, artists, sponsors). This project involved all 850 students of the school, from reception to year 13. For a month, the students worked in cooperation with their teachers, their families and the local community on the implementation of different actions like tree-planting, construction of a metal turtle functioning as a recycling bin, development of a mobile application to minimize food wastage, tasting of fruits and vegetables, sale of ecological products and donation of their garden's products to families in need.
Background
• A private English school, located on the outskirts of the 2nd largest city of the country
• The school’s overall mission is to promote a well-rounded education in partnership with families
The school in general was familiar with the implementation of environmental projects since it is involved in the eco-schools initiative (i.e. a school that implements different actions related to environmental issues). However, it was their first time to be introduced to the Living Lab approach.
Aim
The school’s overall goal was to raise awareness concerning key environmental problems (e.g. plastic pollution, food wastage) and promote collaborative work for these issues by involving the local community. Hence, the school organized an eco-challenge month during which challenges/actions related to different environmental problems took place in the school and the local community in collaboration with different societal actors (e.g. parents, the town hall, artists, sponsors). This project involved all 850 students of the school, from reception to year 13.
ed the SALL project to them.
Co-creation with societal actors
After deciding on the aim, all the school community suggested ideas for different eco-challenges/actions to take place in the school community for a month. Thereafter, different societal actors that could potentially be involved in the project and the different ways through which they could support their endeavour were identified. The initial goal was to find actors in our local community that could sponsor some of the actions with money or products. We also approach the town hall and an artist for supporting the creation of a recycling bin in the area. We also decided to involve the parents by frequently disseminating the eco-challenges and related information for related environmental issues through social media and invitations for participating in some of the eco-challenges.
THE SOCIETAL ACTORS:
1. Sponsors: To achieve our goal of raising awareness concerning environmental problems through different actions, students decided to contact companies that are in the local area of the school to sponsor them with money or different products.
2. Artist: The students came in contact with an artist for helping them create the metal construction that will function as recycling bin in their community. They discussed about the shape of the metal construction and after deciding on the details the artist created a metal construction in the shape of a turtle.
3. Town hall: The students discussed with the town hall about the location where they could place the turtle construction for recycling plastic bottles. They decided to place it in the school yard to be used by the students. They are also planning to cooperate next school year with the town hall for placing similar constructions for recycling purposes in other areas of their city as well.
4. Parents: Students' parents were invited to the different events of the eco-challenge month to promote the spirit of environmental awareness to the wider community. For example, science teachers invited the Parents Teachers Association to visit the school garden where they could see the trees, flowers, herbs and vegetables planted, the pond built and a collection of Cypriot stones.
Moreover, parents were informed through social media (school's facebook page) about the different actions that took place throughout the eco-challenge month. You can see some examples of posts here: https://www.facebook.com/ISOPofficialPTA/posts/262716722208843 , https://www.facebook.com/ISOPofficialPTA/posts/267884948358687
Implementation
For a month, the students worked in cooperation with their teachers, their families and the local community on the implementation of different actions like tree-planting, construction of a metal turtle functioning as a recycling bin, development of a mobile application to minimize food wastage, tasting of fruits and vegetables, sale of ecological products and donation of their garden's products to families in need.
THE PROTOTYPES:
• A set of eco-challenge ideas
• An artistic recycling bin
• An app to help reducing food waste
• A school garden
• A tasting of fruits and vegetables
• An eco-sale with herbs and herbal teas from the school garden
Reflection
This project helped in supporting all the different personalities, goals, and needs of the students. Students were given the opportunity to make their own choices for the project and in that way, they increased intrinsic motivation, and put in more effort to design and implement all these actions — an ideal recipe for better learning outcomes.
SALL offered us the opportunity to meet others sharing the same vision and to collaborate with other schools and companies interested in the projects.
Futurel Plans
•Metallic containers for recycling to add in other parts of Paphos
•Hoping to develop green areas around the school
•Donate to those in need
•Increase awareness about environment
•Implicate more companies / collaborations