FIRST
STEPS TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE SCHOOL
Alexandra Leal
Nuno Mota
Rui Mendes (*)
Sofia Silva
Agrupamento de Escolas de Vale de Ovil
Rua Engenheiro Adelino
Amaro da Costa
4640-141 Campelo –
Baião
Portugal
Summary
“Eco-escolas”
is a programme fitted for Environmental Education and for citizenship promoted
by the Foundation for Environmental Education (Fundação para a Educação
Ambiental - FEE) and that has been implemented in our school for a few years.
It is mainly aimed at basic schools and intends to encourage actions and
acknowledge the work carried out by the school for the benefit of the
environment.
The great
pillar upon which the programme is built is applying guidelines and ideas of
education and environmental management to the daily life spent at school,
implementing Agenda 21 on a local level.
The effort
and actions carried out by our school have been rewarded with several prizes
over the last years.
Key-words: Water, residues, energy,
biodiversity, forest, biological agriculture, outdoor areas.
Introduction
Our
institution is located in Baião, a small village in the North of Portugal in
the Oporto district. This is a mainly agricultural and forest region framed by
the ridges of Marão and Aboboreira and by Douro river.
The
natural framing of our region is one of the aspects that justify the activities
carried away by clubs and projects connected to the environment existent in our
school. Therefore, our experience in including children and teenagers in nature
is really wide and has been developed over the years in a sustainable way and
based in two ideas: pedagogy and active citizenship.
The
guidelines upon which we work have a strong environmental aspect that led to
the creation of several clubs and projects as, for example, Eco-Escolas programme (Eco-schools),
Photo-gardening, the “Lontrinhas do rio Ovil” (Little Otters of Ovil river). All these actions,
although created with specific aims, are based on a main target: the
environmental awareness of the whole community having as key the students.
This
paper presents in a synthetic way, a group of good practices connected to a
case study that shows one of the projects we are currently overtaking - the Eco-Escolas programme.
Methodology
The
adoption of this project by the school of Baião was based on the finding that
even though it is located in an area of significant environmental potential,
there are shortcomings within the community in what protection and
environmental enhancement are concerned. The development of the application
process for an Eco-Escola would imply
an intervention in the community within some of its most important members –
children and young people – who, through a proactive action, would reconfigure
the attitudes and mentalities of the oldest people.
The
first step was to conduct a diagnosis that would make clear which areas were
more sensitive and needed intervention. From those we highlight the following:
·
increase awareness of waste separation
practices and recycling;
·
boost activities related to the
environment;
·
raise awareness about the importance of
the forest and its ecosystems;
·
raise awareness about the importance of
the energy savings and of reusable energies for the preservation of our planet.
Afterwards
the lines of action were defined to disseminate among the target-group, based
on a group of competencies to be achieved by students:
·
civic education;
·
enhancement of the powers of observation
and autonomy;
·
stimulation of the participation habits
of young people in decision making;
·
implementation of actions towards the
improvement of environmental quality and planet preservation;
·
implementation of activities that can
motivate teenagers to change their attitudes and adopt sustainable behaviours in their daily lives,
individually and on family and community levels.
The
strategy is about promoting environmental actions that will reduce the
ecological footprint. In order to accomplish this, and because it would make no
sense doing this in an isolated fashion, several partnerships were established
with public and private institutions turned to the environmental protection,
namely:
·
the municipality of Baião;
·
a company of collection of urban solid
wastes;
·
a company which collects used cooking
oil;
·
a company that recycles toners and
cartridges.
At
the same time the whole community was being sensitized to join forces, with the
support of other environmental clubs and projects involved in the activities.
The dissemination of such events was done through the internet and school and
local newspapers to reach as many people as possible. In a way to involve the
local community in environmental issues, the Eco-escolas Counsel was created, consisting of a discussion forum
where students, parents, teachers and municipality technicians debated the
issues that mostly affect the community and the means of intervention to reduce
environmental impacts.
One
of the most important steps to raise young people’s awareness and to get them
involved in the creation of problem solutions was the conduction of an
environmental audit to the school facilities. The areas were connected to the
waste levels, energetic efficiency, biodiversity and environmental policies. A
scale of values (according to international standards) was applied to the
results obtained which will later be converted into an efficiency percentage.
Table I - Results
of the environmental audit conducted, converted into percentage
|
THEMES
|
|
Waste
|
Water
|
Energy
|
Biodiversity
|
Environmental
Policy
|
|
74%
|
71%
|
59%
|
50%
|
80%
|
Several
campaigns were organised:
·
separation and collection of wastes
(paper, glass, metal, plastic, cooking oil, batteries, toners, cartridges, corks
and electrical appliances);
·
workshops (home composting, biodiesel
and soap production, production of medicinal and aromatic
plants);
·
reforestation actions (of great
importance considering the fires affecting our region), restocking the Ovil
river (trouts);
·
celebration of special dates related to
the environment;
·
study of the biodiversity of ecosystems
(river and forest environments);
·
Participation in the Environmental
Olympics;
·
Lectures with prestigious academics;
·
boosting of national projects;
·
field trips for young people of
different age groups.
 |
Pic. 1 –
Cleaning actions in Ovil River
|
 |
Pic. 2 – Planting
carried out by students from our school
|
 |
Pic. 3 – Participation in one of the stages of the
Environmental Olympics
|
 |
Pic. 4 – Workshop: production of soap out of cooking
oils
|
Table II
- Quantification of the most important actions carried out by “Eco-Escolas”
programme
|
Actions
|
Quantities
|
|
Planted
Trees
|
3.500
|
|
Restocking of the River (fish spawn)
|
5.000
|
|
Restocking of the River (fish/trouts)
|
500
|
|
Waste
Collection (Kg)
|
3.000
|
|
Lectures
|
20
|
|
Field Trips
|
20
|
|
Workshops
|
10
|
These
activities have happened over the length of a year, ending on a day dedicated
to the environment (Eco-Escolas Day) which involves the whole school
community and it is then that all activities and their results are disclosed
and when a massive environmental awareness campaign is begun.
Since
it started Eco-Escolas has obtained results that have even surpassed
their facilitators’ expectations. A good example was the debates over:
·
the importance of the preservation and
reforestation of the woods, mainly of oaks because of their importance as drain
for CO2;
·
the preservation of biodiversity and of
authoctonous species for the balance of ecosystems;
·
an ambitious project: the building of a
Centre for Environmental Interpretation on a regional and national scale based
on an oak forest that is the last authoctonous one in the Iberian Peninsula.
Pic. 5 – Eco-Escolas Day: dissemination of activities
Conclusion
As
we have mentioned, Eco-Escolas
programme is one of many actions our organization is undertaking in the
environmental sphere. Although the environmental awareness of our students and of
the community is built upon personal goals, we are sure that the contribution
of this programme is worth a special treatment that explains why we have
devoted this paper to it.
The active interaction of our children and young
people in issues related to nature is something that worries us and we have
full perception that the actions we have carried out have contributed to a
significant improvement of such an interaction. It would be interesting to
measure the impact of this programme’s implementation and to establish a
comparison with the results of the environmental audit. Nevertheless, such
results are not yet available and cannot be included on this paper, but will
certainly be part of future record analysis.
* Centro de Estudos em Geografia e
Ordenamento do Território (CEGOT).
Ovil river is
one of three small rivers that drain Baião, being a tributary of the River
Douro.
