Secondary Weekly Highlight: Setting the Standard for Sustainability




Secondary Weekly Highlight: Setting the Standard for Sustainability
Share
"Sustainability" Secondary Weekly Highlights

In this week’s Secondary Blog, EP Senior Community Prefect, Keith Poon shares some fantastic and ‘hot off the press’ news with you regarding our Eco Schools status. He has also taken the opportunity to spread the word about the great sustainability steps that we are making at EP.

So far this term, students have been doing a variety of things to promote and practice sustainability in the school, most notably through Extra Curricular Activities, such as Eco Club and KLASS Apprentice. In early October, Eco Club and the English department celebrated National Poetry Day by writing a poem describing the beauty of the natural world and ways that we can preserve this beauty to prevent catastrophic events from unfolding. The aim of this was to communicate the importance of sustainability in a short and effective way. 

Not to be outdone, the Spanish department ran a poster competition, where students got to express their creativity in a fun and engaging way by designing a digital poster on the benefits of a ‘zero waste school.’

Screenshot 2022-10-21 at 10.56.26 AM

In KLASS Apprentice, students have been given the opportunity to start their own sustainable businesses. Students have now created their own companies and are beginning to manufacture an environmentally friendly and useful product. One group has already obtained the materials they need, calculated their costs and are currently sewing tote bags, while the other company is hoping to produce sustainable soaps.

We are delighted to announce that the school has been officially awarded the Eco-Schools Silver Award, in partnership with Green Growth Asia. Following the Bronze Award that we received last year, this is the next step in our journey. We are now closer than ever to becoming a Green Flag School! Our Eco committee engaged in many activities as part of this process such as conducting an environmental review, creating a water action plan, producing and maintaining an eco-notice board and more. Through the water action plan, we came up with plans to conserve water such as through the addition of aerators to taps and communicating with the maintenance staff about fixing water leaks. We would once again like to congratulate students and teachers for this amazing effort.

Following on from this fantastic achievement, we have many things lined up for the year ahead. We will shortly be conducting another annual environmental review, where we will be assessing our progress on sustainable practices. Based on the results of this review, we will devise a new action plan focused on a specific eco-theme. Furthermore, we will be continuing to develop and enhance our existing initiatives, such as the leak reporting system. We will also look to build our partnerships, such as the Uniqlo upcycling event last year, and much more. We are very excited for the year ahead and you should be too, so stay tuned, and check out our Instagram @KLASS_Eco for updates.

Screenshot 2022-10-21 at 10.58.30 AM

 

Thank you to Keith and all our students and teachers who are supporting our drive for a sustainable community in a sustainable world.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

Maria Osowiecki

Secondary Principal