Never has the gap between what education offers and what the world needs been greater. The pace of change is rapid. Jobs are changing, new opportunities are emerging and access to information has never been greater. The very way in which children learn is also changing.

The pursuit of more global, real and student-centered learning is a hot topic in education.

Over the past 10 years, Green School has been designing and developing a learning programme which combines deep and strong roots with an ability to bend like bamboo.

How exactly do we do that? Do we follow a prescribed curriculum? In a word, no.

Green School students in the garden.

While many take comfort in known, tried and tested curricula such as the International Baccalaureate, Green School has pushed and pulled against cookie-cutter approaches to learning. Focusing on prescriptive, written curriculum leaves the whole truth untold. If you look at a curriculum, you will notice boxes. Ticking off those boxes with very specific lessons, assignments, tests, worksheets, and learning standards necessarily confines learning and leaves off creativity.

Every time Green School has felt itself drifting towards those curricula with their boxes and constraints, we deliberately pivoted to find our direction again. That has led us to the Green School Way. Our teaching philosophy and method, the Green School Way, was created and reviewed between 2008 and 2018 by all, and we mean all, members of our community of learners in some way or another. It is strongly rooted in our REAL pedagogical principles and hands-on learning programme, which ultimately aims to support the development of powerful learning mindsets, joyful personal qualities, and life-long skills and competencies.

The Green School Way has strong roots to sprout a grove of green leaders for generations to come.

Much like Facebook’s former move fast and break things mantra, we believe education needs an agile school to shake things up. We don’t follow a curriculum. We design one. Ongoing and tailored to our learning community.

Green School Primary Science Class

Green School has built its learning programme on the belief that the child has to be free from fear before anything else can be achieved—free from the fear of failure, the fear of being themselves, the fear of the learning process. They have to be confident, calm and happy to thrive at school. This is fundamental to learning, evidence-based and yet is often juxtaposed to the physical spaces and box-ticking approaches still evident in many schools today

By creating a strong sense of community, emphasising the relationship between students and teachers and designing learning with the child at the centre, we can increase wellbeing and reduce fear. The Green School Way can support high school students, off timetable, to collaborate, pitch ideas, and start activist projects together. We can let a seventh-grade class start a salsa sauce business to benefit children in West Bali. In the process, students delegate roles, learn about procuring ingredients and jars, sanitization, distribution, advertising, business, and responsible social media campaigns. Our students team up on big and beautiful bamboo constructions. They build pumps and turbines for energy and serve as ocean ambassadors. And, we stand back and marvel when a third-grade class constructs ladders to rescue frogs trapped in man-made ponds.

High School students designing and building the Energy Hub roof

Melati Wijsen ‘18 summed up our teaching on the TED stage in 2015. “We have learned that kids can do anything,” she said. “We can make things happen … Kids have a boundless energy and a motivation to be the change the world needs.”

The Green School Way is not to fill a bucket, but rather light a fire. We endeavor to teach students to “learn how to learn.” Most importantly, we aim to instill in our students a love of learning as a passionate pursuit in and of itself. Green School rests on a simple belief that we are all innately passionate and curious, life-long learners.

To that end, we allow learners big and small to explore real-world ideas and issues within a mission-driven focus. We believe learning is most impactful when it is real – this is central to The Green School Way.

So, if anyone asks – what’s the curriculum at Green School? Just tell them, Green School keeps it REAL.

Green School Primary students and teacher

REAL learning at Green School follows these principles:

Relationship-centered

Green School prioritizes and sustains relationships between all learners, their environment, and their community; our programs are holistic and engage the whole person including social-emotional, intrapersonal, intellectual and kinesthetic connections.

Green School students learning and working on projects in the Innovation Hub.

Experiential

Green School’s framework for learning supports experimentation and reflection on successes and failures; Green School anticipates and adapts to the evolving needs of learners, their environment, and community; change happens in a sustainable way.

Authentic

Green School prioritizes interconnected experiences driven by real-world needs and the prospect of a sustainable future; The world is a diverse and complex network of systems, and our programme, community, and environment embody an integrated, systems-thinking approach.

Green School students visiting a local school in Bali

Local

Green School acts locally first; we immerse learning in our immediate surroundings, culture, and community and then we think global.

Ensuring we keep it REAL, sometimes, just sometimes, our students also sit down at their desks to absorb lessons like algebra.

Learn more about Green School Learning Programme at www.www.greenschool.org and join our Open Day on January 26, 2019.

The post What is the Green School Curriculum? appeared first on Green School Bali.

Heart of School, Green School’s main building was constructed within 6 months in 2008 and is one of the largest bamboo structure in the world.

Some of pioneer teachers back in 2008.

Green School Early Years Classroom.

Green School Millenium Bridge, entirely made of bamboo and inspired by the traditional house of Minang Kabau, West Sumatera, Indonesia.

One of Green School classrooms

Green School Physical Education on the soccer field.

Trash Walk, a walk around our campus and village to collect trash and educate students about the importance of waste management (2012).

Kul Kul Connection, Green School’s Community Integration Program was established in 2013.

Green School’s Kul Kul Connection runs the “Trash for Class” Program, where local students learn English and Sustainability Courses in Green School after school hours and pay the class with 5 kg of trash per semester.

Ban Ki-moon, the former UN Secretary-General visited Green School in 2014 when he said “… I have visited many different places and many schools but Green School is the most unique and impressive school I have ever visited.”

Green School is unique in many ways, one of which is because of the parents community. Green School parents are inspiring people who have plenty of creative ideas and solutions, willing to support with real-life skills and expertises, and generous to give a hand to volunteer in the School projects. Green School Parents Association was established in 2015.

Green School Bio Bus, a student-led social enterprise that runs on used cooking oil, was incubated in 2014 to tackle the environmental problem of used cooking oil black market in Bali.

Green School Primary students’ Chicken Coop Project

Green School Campus

Green School Primary students’ activism

Green School Primary students rice harvesting

Green School’s Community Innovation Hub, newly opened in 2018, is a maker-space for students to incubate ideas and turn them into real-life projects.

Green School High School students learn in the 3D printing class.

Let Your Green Soul Shine, a fundraising concert with Michael Franti in January 2018.

Green School Early Years students planted trees as their legacy to mark the 10-year celebration of Green School Bali on August 31, 2018.

Green School celebrated its 10 Year Anniversary with a special visit from the Co-Founders, John and Cynthia Hardy, School Assembly, Music, Dance, Cake and the launch of New Logo and Brand Identity.

The post 10 Years of Green School in Pictures appeared first on Green School Bali.

So how does one of the most-filmed school campuses document ten jam-packed years of growth, evolution, and impact? 

By keeping it real.

Green School Bali is no stranger to media visits and has numerous production companies who want to come visit the Indiana-Jones like campus and report on the Green School story. However, for this project, the school felt it was important to distill the narrative in a more personalised and authentic way. By documenting and capturing the journey through the eyes of community members and dusting off some of the school’s archive footage, we sought to capture the real story.

Green School’s Community Relations team kicked off the project together with a small production crew led by Indonesian-videographer Adrian Tan. The documentary showcases some archive footage of the original building of the school and is interspersed with newly captured footage including the rare featuring of the King of Sibang Kaja, the leader of the local village that Green School resides in.

“The purpose of the Green School 10 documentary was to tell a story from all the perspectives at Green School. We often hear Green School stories through the lens of journalists, or communications experts. The 10 year anniversary video is not meant to be a marketing tool, but to tell the Green School story through the eyes of parents, students, founders and the local community – showcasing the ups and downs, feeling the vibe of uncertainty as a start-up, Green School’s maturing state, and its inspiring and overwhelming growth.”

Sophie Daubisse-Reznichek, Co-Producer of Green School 10 Documentary and Green School Community Relations Manager.

What started as a dream of John and Cynthia Hardy for a better school for their children, has transformed over the last decade into something that has touched the lives of thousands and thousands children, families and teachers from around the world.

More articles and videos about Green School history and journey:

History of Green School

John Hardy’s Ted Talk – My Green School Dream

Green School – making a difference

Founders Note From Green School Dream to School of the Future

The post Green School 10 appeared first on Green School Bali.

Green School has been educating for sustainability since 2008. Along the way, it has attracted hundreds of educators from around the world to learn the Green School Way.

“We receive many inquiries every single day from educators around the world who want to learn more about our school,” said Sanne van Oort, Green Educator Course manager. “We hear from the US to Latin America, from Europe to Asia, from South Africa to Australia. So, we decided we need to initiate a program that allows us to share our journey in integrating sustainability into our learning program and how we develop our own holistic and child-centred curriculum. Hence, the Green Educator Course, a professional development program for educators was born in 2013.”

Five years running now, Green School has hosted 19 Green Educator Courses with 536 participants from 51 countries. It has built a global network of inspired and like-minded educators.

Now, we run the course six times a year, which comprises five international courses and one course in Bahasa Indonesia specifically designed for Indonesian teachers.

Teachers from around the world build a global network of green educators

What have Green Educator Course Alumni said about the program?

“Most stimulating, heartening, and purifying experience, one that echoes with Balinese culture. The Green Educator Course was conducted with heartfelt care and gentleness, down to every single detail. The staff was full of humility, openness, and passion for life. In those five days, I lived the secret of Green School.”
Annie (Green Educator Course Alumna from Hong Kong)

Annie (Green Educator Course Alumna from Hong Kong)

“In Feb 2018, I had the pleasure of joining a group of passionate educators from around the world in Green School’s Green Educator Course. Not only did I get the chance to spend a week on the Green School campus and learn about the amazing approach to holistic education for sustainability, but I also had an amazing opportunity to meet with people from all around the world, including South Africa, Madagascar, Dubai, Canada, USA, Brazil, Chile, Korea, Taiwan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia and, of course, Indonesia. This experience has opened my mind to a range of new challenges and possibilities which I hadn’t fully considered before, though to be honest, I’m still processing the experience. Thank you, Green School.
Robert Hewat, Green Educator Course Alumnus from Australia

Wiwik, Green Educator Course Alumna from Indonesia

“It’s nearly a year since I joined the Green Educator Course and I missed Green School every day. I have applied 90% of the course takeaways into Alam Riang Library, a library project that provided alternative literature for children in Jombang, East Java. Now, I am onto the next step to expand the library through a national competition. I wish I could come back and join the Green Educator Course again to obtain even more knowledge and inspirations. Thank you Green School Bali.”
Wiwik, Green Educator Course Alumna from Indonesia

How is the Green Educator Course different from other teacher training?

The five-day professional development programme is unlike any other teacher training.

It equips participants with a new toolbox of innovative teaching strategies and resources.
It shares multiple views of education from the involved participants.
It engages with a global and local network of educators who are committed to student-centred, holistic Education for Sustainability.
It networks teachers and community members for sustained support and idea-sharing.
It creates an inspiring environment to collaborate on unique projects, programmes, teaching strategies, and resources.

Green Educator Course participants interact with Green School students

In 2017 and 2018, the Green Educator Course was named one of 100 education innovations across the world by global education non-profit HundrED.

What is the focus of the Green Educator Course?

The Green Educator Course focuses on various aspects of learning. It has a holistic approach that incorporates Green School’s iRESPECT (Integrity, Responsibility, Empathy, Sustainability, Peace, Equity, Community, Trust) values. The pedagogy focuses not only on ‘what students learn’ but also on ‘how they learn’. Green School learning is thematic, for example, a waste thematic may include setting up a recycling centre and strategizing how to get schools to use it. The program also provides strategies to map individual eco-footprints and expand awareness of own behaviours.

Green School is a Project-Based Learning school, where student-centred pedagogy allows students to learn through experience. Education for Sustainability will replace Ecophobia (fear of ecological problems) with Ecophilia (love for nature).

Ultimately, the program will encourage educators to learn about the sustainability compass and its four elements: Nature, Economy, Society and Wellness and how to integrate them into the learning process.

Learn more about the Green Educator Course and join our global network of green educators today!

The post A Global Network of Green Educators appeared first on Green School Bali.

Can you imagine a school where students could incubate and investigate ideas and turn them into real solutions? Where learning has a distinct flavour of purpose?

The world is calling out for new approaches to education. Approaches where students learn to apply knowledge and skills to real-world solutions. Ways to be able to creatively problem-solve, collaborate and to think in systems. The unique Green School Community Innovation Hub (iHub) is one of the ways Green School is bringing this idea to life. Enabling students to draw learning from every part of the campus and beyond, to implement, in a hands-on and purposeful way, the hybrid academic disciplines of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics).

Green School students making bio soap from used cooking oil.

In January 2018, the doors will open to a hub of innovation and fabrication. It will be alive with the sights and sounds of collaboration and creation. One of the many pieces of equipment and tools that students will be working with will be 3D printers. Why 3D printing? In embracing the technological future, there is growing demand for mastery of 3D, virtual, and augmented reality skills. Teaching 3D printing not only equips students with the skills they need for the future but also enhances their knowledge of the STEM subjects. 3D printing allows for rapid prototyping, while digital fabrication also enables designers to combine beauty with function while cutting down on material costs and time. This is all part of the zero-waste goal for the Innovation Hub.

3D Printing Workshop for High School students.

Community Integration

The Innovation Hub will be the new home for Green School’s growing social enterprises. BioBus, the first student-led sustainable school buses, running on used cooking oil converted to biodiesel, will take up residence. As will KemBali, Green School’s resource management and recycling station. The Kul Kul Connection, Green School’s community outreach program, which provides English and Sustainable Learning for nearly 300 local students around the Green School neighborhood, will also have their own space. The new spacious Innovation Hub will enable students and community to incubate ideas, research and develop the social enterprises even further.

Local children learning about sustainable projects at Green School.

Human Library

The Innovation Hub is not just a new addition to the beautiful bamboo campus, it will also play a role as a human library. The idea of going to the library and reading about specific topics will come to life as students can go to the Innovation Hub and learn from real entrepreneurs, artists, and professionals. Real people who are part of our community, or are friends of Green School and who have knowledge, expertise, and experience to share. This way students gain experiential learning in everything from technical know-how and artistic design to financial skills, from managing projects and teams to developing partnerships. This is 21st-century skills in practice.

Green School students consulting with parent mentors

Bridging the Gap

Construction of the Innovation Hub will be completed at the end of 2017. $200,000+ was raised earlier this year to establish the facility and the 700+ children who will have access to the Innovation Hub will be the direct beneficiaries of our generous donors. Supporting students to be changemakers, to get their ideas off the drawing board and into real life is at the heart of the Innovation Hub. It will be another example of how Green School is leading the way in 21st-century education. Bridging the gap between theory and practice. Bringing technology into education in new and exciting ways. Unleashing the potential of our community of learners to incubate ideas and turn knowledge into real solutions. This is 21st-century learning. This is Green School.

Innovation Hub at Green School.

Help us to support approximately 700 students and changemakers to turn ideas into real-world solutions. The iHub officially opens on January 12, 2018 at Green School. Watch the video here. 

The post Where Low Tech and High Tech Merge appeared first on Green School Bali.

As we head towards 2018 and celebrate 10 years of Green School, we take a little peek back at how the times have changed over the years. Let’s jump in the time machine and travel back just a few years to see some of the milestones of the Green School journey.

In 2012, Green School established its community integration programs – Kul Kul Connection, which provides English and Sustainability courses for local children around Sibang Kaja, where Green School resides; and KemBali, our resource management and recycling station. The first pairs of Bali Starlings were released on the campus, as part of Green School’s conservation program. Other highlights of 2012, included the opening of the Middle School Barn (prior to that the Middle School tribe shared the 2nd Floor Heart of School with the High School).

2013 saw the launch of Bye Bye Plastic Bags, a student-driven social movement to ban the use of plastic bags in Bali and beyond. The amazing ‘Greenstock’ music festival was launched which aimed to raise awareness on environmental issues. The first Green Educator Course, a 5-day professional development program for educators in Green School, Bali began. This was a huge year for Green School as the first High School class celebrated their graduation in June 2013. The Green School Graduating Class of 2013 were sent on their way into the world with messages of support from Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Bob Brown and Richard Branson.

Jane Goodall visited Green School in 2013.

Another big year of growth and community was experienced in 2014 with the incubation of the BioBus, the first student-driven school bus running by used cooking oil, and the first delegation of Green School Green Generation (Green Gen) student activists headed to the COP (UN Convention on Climate Change). Green School also hosted honorable visitors, including Dr. Jane Goodall and the UN Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon.

(Plus the now well-established tradition of the Green School’s very own Ogoh Ogoh festival was launched in spectacular style.)

Green School Green Generation

In 2015, Green School opened 6 new Primary School classrooms; Sustainable Solutions – an annual eco-festival, became a part of the annual community calendar; a new record of 30 nationalities were represented in the community; and the Green School Parents Association (GSPA) was formed, representing the Green School parent voice on the Board of Directors.

In 2016, full-time student enrolment grew to 400 and Kul Kul Connection grew to 300 students. In terms of Governance for Green School as a non-profit, the year ushered in a new, more community representative Board of Management. Eve Ensler visited the Green School to take V-Day to a whole new level. The Green School Farmer’s Market was established and we gathered together for the first ever Penjor Festival. The sound of Green School, the Marimba was brought back to the music program.

Today, the school is still evolving, but as we finish the last few weeks of 2017 Green School celebrates 35 nationalities in the community, a student body of 440, including a record 39 Local Scholars. The school also achieved international school accreditation from WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges). Awards included the Zayed Future Energy Prize and four awards at the Reimagine Education Awards. A record $500,000 was raised in the Changemaker Challenge to help further grow the Local Scholars program and build new facilities at the school. There is more to do and more happening as Green School moves into its tenth year.

2018 will kick-off with the opening of the Community Innovation Hub (i-Hub), the Energy Education Hub (e-Hub) and a new science lab. In moving towards Green School’s 10th-year-anniversary celebrations in April 2018, January will also start with Let Your Green Soulshine with a big supporter and friend of Michael Franti coming together to celebrate with local musicians to support the Local Scholars Program and Bumi Sehat.

There are many ways to be part of our 10 Year Anniversary which kicks off on Jan 12, 2018.
Come celebrate with Green School.

Opening Ceremony of new Learning Spaces at Green School – Community Innovation Hub (i-Hub), Energy Hub (e-Hub), and Science Lab
January 12th, 2018
Thanks to generous donors and supporters of Green School, we are celebrating the official opening ceremonies of three key projects. Watch the VIDEO  to learn more.

Soulshine: 10th Year Celebration Official Launch
January 12th, 2018
Concert and fundraising event starring Michael Franti, Robi and Navicula, and other local artists
Sign up HERE.

The post Celebrating 10 Years appeared first on Green School Bali.

This is exactly what parents do here, from volunteering in the parents association to yoga classes, meditation, to health and raw food cooking workshops, Indonesian language lessons, Gamelan (music) practice, gardening and on and on. If you meet a Green School parent during the school year, you’ll often hear them say how busy & fulfilling life is on our bustling campus. We are a community of learners, and an engaged parent is as important to us as an engaged student.

Our neighbours at The Kul Kul Farm offer Green School parents another opportunity to learn an advanced version of what their children learn at Green School each day. The farm’s Permaculture Design Course enables parents to fully immerse in our landscape. Permaculture is a broad term, but at its core is a conscious way of designing our lives in a way that seeks to mimic the patterns found in nature.

The Kul Kul Farm has welcomed over 200 Green School parents who’ve participated in various open days, gardening workshops, bamboo building, permaculture and herbal medicine courses. Next month, the farm is offering a Permaculture Design Course facilitated by John Champagne with farm Co-Founders Orin Hardy and Maria Farrugia, and will include a list of special guest instructors. It is their last permaculture workshop until 2018. The two-week program is filled with in-depth knowledge and experiences; from better understanding permaculture design and sustainable farming, to discovering the secrets of traditional Balinese cooking, listening to local story tellers, doing yoga, and sharing skills for a more sustainable future.

If you have been in Bali for a while, or you are just settling in, join the course this July 28th to August 12th to get your hands dirty and get a jump start into what it means to live “Green”.

Learn how to design a home that’s beautiful, functional and earth-friendly. You’ll run through the nitty gritty of growing, preparing and preserving organic food, dealing with “waste”, managing your water and energy whilst experiencing community living amongst like minded, passionate people.

Learning is such a rich and important part of our lives but the older we get, the more often we forget to learn new things. At Green School the learning continues for children, teachers and parents alike. Come and learn with us. 

Article written by: KulKul Farm

The post Learn Skills For A Sustainable Future appeared first on Green School Bali.

A passion for student-driven learning and a belief in the power of collaboration.

Students and teachers from Green School Bali and the TH Köln University in Germany, have joined forces in a ground-breaking renewable energies collaboration. ‘Operation Rain or Shine’ is a shared learning experience, which grew from a common learning philosophy between the two schools. A shared belief in the power of learning through real-life projects and educating for 21st Century skills and competencies.

This progressive approach to learning, is giving a team of masters level students from the University and Green School High School students the chance to work together on an ambitious hybrid solar and micro-hydro project to be installed on-site at Green School Bali.

After winning the Zayed Future Energy Prize, which will fund the project, Green School embarked on one of its biggest sustainability projects to date. Technical support was going to be needed to fulfil the project goal and in a moment of perfect synchronicity, new friends of Green School, at TH Köln, stepped in to join forces and round-out a cross-generational, cross-school, cross-cultural team of students with a shared passion for learning by doing.

With students on the ground at Green School Bali, the Bali team’s role is to collect data, photograph, video, measure, plot and plan possible solutions to getting Green School powered by renewables. For the Masters students in Cologne, their role plays to their strengths with the analysis, technical assessment and expert advice on various solutions and installation advice. What a team, what a learning experience, what a way to take-on a big problem and power-up a real solution! This is progressive education. This is the school of the future, now.

Along the way, Green School students in Middle School and Primary School will also have the chance to participate, with the final solution being a highly visible hybrid systems that showcases the power and technical workings of renewable energies, for all to see and learn from.

Establishing the teams, working out how to best communicate across different time zones, identifying the various responsibilities, project milestones and learning objectives has been a learning journey already. But the two teams are on their way and with a deadline of December 2017 to have stage one of the system fully installed, it is all systems go!

We wish the two groups, as one team, all the best as they experience and share the power of harnessing our globally connected world, for the good of our planet!

Green School Bali won the Zayed Future Energy Prize in 2016 in the Global High Schools category.
View Green School’s Zayed Future Energy Prize Submission Video Here:

Learn More about other ways to get involved and support sustainability or enterprise projects at Green School here .

The post Operation Rain Or Shine appeared first on Green School Bali.

Green School’s Middle School Director Sal Gordon decided there was no better place to begin than with his ninety students. Instead of waiting until practicums or post-university to make a difference, Pak Sal incorporated the SDGs into the curriculum to teach students to seize every learning moment as an opportunity to make an impact.

In addition to more traditional proficiency subjects and experiential learning, Green School’s unique SDG Thematic programme provides opportunities for students to start their journey as informed, passionate, empathetic and creative thinking world changers. Thematics is delivered through project-based activities focused on each of the seventeen goals, and incorporates Global Awareness (humanities) and Science components in each. It’s broken up into six blocks over the year, exposing students to multiple issues, broadening their awareness of the goals.

Green School students stop to reflect on world water issues at the campus spring-fed pool

This past fall semester, the Sixth Grade covered Goal Six, clean water and sanitation. In the science component, students researched water-transmitted diseases and explored local and cultural water systems, from reverse osmosis to solar stills. They took personal, communal and global perspectives, considering their own effects on water cleanliness and looked at the major global issues related to our water crisis. Later in the semester they looked at how to use water as energy while covering Goal Seven, affordable and clean energy. The class worked together in different departments (logistics, laborers, engineers and foreman/forewomen) to build a dam with natural building materials on the bank of our adjacent Ayung River. The students revealed the impacts of dams by creating their own websites.

Students build their own dam on the banks of the Ayung River

Grade seven covered Goal 2 on ending hunger, achieving food security, and promoting sustainable agriculture, and Goal 3 on ensuring healthy lives and well-being. The units are designed with the Sustainability Compass model in mind – to encourage connections between Nature, Economy, Society and Wellbeing. So, the students delved into the topics from multiple directions and perspectives, from the physiology of hunger and GMO foods to how inequality impacts access to food.

In Grade Eight, students worked through economic ideas to approach Goal 1, ending poverty. They started by learning how wealth is created, the dangers of consumerism, and the psychology of poverty. Instead of leaving the students overwhelmed with the weight of these topics, they were then guided to research individuals and organizations that are alleviating poverty through purpose-driven projects. In the second block, they looked at Goal Four, equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all. The students learned about learning, discovering how the brain cognitively and morally develops over time. Then, they designed their dream schools, implementing a mission statement and curriculums that promote equity, inclusion and life-long learning.

Hands-on learning is a big part of the SDG-based Thematics programme

Through blocks like these, the students start to hone systems-thinking skills to better comprehend big picture concepts. Because Green School believes in local, community-based solutions, we also realize that we have responsibilities as citizens to our own communities. As Green School’s student population represents over 43 countries, we are a global community, and an ideal place to host a Model United Nations (MUN). But with such a driven group of student activists, it’s even more appropriate to be this incubator for solutions to meet the noble SDGs. During his visit two years ago for Green School’s Model UN, Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon mentioned, “this is the most unique and impressive school I have ever visited.” We have our creative faculty and driven students to thank for making such a lasting impression on Secretary General Moon, and for making an even greater impact on our students.

For lesson plans and ideas on how you can incorporate the SDGs into your curriculum, click here.

The post Model UN: The Green School Way appeared first on Green School Bali.

“Where does it go?” is the theme for Year Nine students taking part in projects this term which all focus on waste and pollution.

At the moment the projects running are: looking at school transportation, with a focus on a possible bio-diesel bus; restoration of the Ayung River watershed; and reimagining the waste management process on campus, specifically through a redesign of the recycling and waste bins.

Parent mentors from the Green Team (a body of parents supporting sustainability projects within the school community) pitched their passion projects to the students, and won student volunteers. Students are now actively working with the parent mentors and faculty organizing team to move the projects forward, as equal partners in vision and execution.

Grade nine students collaborate their ideas with a fellow team member – a teacher

This week, the Bamboo News Magazine team visited the “revamping of the recycling bins” group. The group used a “Design Thinking” process to improve the bins’ appeal, their educative purpose, and their practicality. The broader goal is to improve the rubbish situation at the Green School.

With all of the current ventures still in the early stages, the lesson we were privy to consisted of brainstorming the basic necessities, features and practicalities of the bins.

Ranking the importance of different aspects of the bins

A prototype, where bins with specific features were “designed” on paper by each participant, was shared out to the larger group. One thing that particularly stood out in the team’s conversations was the wish (and need) for an interactive, novel element to the bins themselves.

This lead to some really exciting ideas involving  the elements of fire and smoke. Be warned: the grade nine students, teachers, and parents taking part in this project are set to make a real difference to how you go about disposing of your rubbish in the future!

Explaining a potential bin design

Bamboo News Magazine will keep you updated on how this endeavor prospers in the future, as well information on the other Jalan Jalan projects. Best of luck to all involved!

The post Students, teachers, parents – the New Green Team appeared first on Green School Bali.