GREEN WEEK INSPIRES STUDENTS AND PARENTS

Issue 27: 5/5/2023

What an amazing Green Week we had at TKO and JL Campuses!  The Vie Scolaires brought students, teachers, and parents together in support of two UN Sustainable Development Goals, #13 – Climate Action and #12 – Sustainable Production and Consumption.

Hands-on workshops, a recyclable fashion contest, recycling station field trips, and games and talks on recycling all proved to be a huge success.

Talking to the Experts

FIS Sustainability Committee parent members, Pia von Waldau and Helga Vanthournout ran games with our early years students, conducted highly interactive talks with our primary students, and an idea-sharing session with FIS parents. We interviewed Helga, a waste management and circular economy professional, to gauge her impressions of the week.

1. What did you share with our community during Green Week?

We took different approaches for each group.

For the Primary talks, we made sure to develop a very positive angle: our Hong Kong coastal landscapes and wildlife are unique, wonderful, and worth protecting. We focused on empowering the students because pointing out solutions that are within our reach has been proven to stave off the real risk of climate anxiety.

With the little ones, we played games and stimulated their creativity around the question What is waste really? Who decides that this or that item can no longer be used and is only fit for the garbage can? (Some parents may have noticed an unusual interest in that waste bin lately!)

With parents, we focused on very practical information around what to recycle where. This was combined with background information around the quality of Hong Kong’s recycling infrastructure, because a lack of trust is keeping many in the community from recycling more.

2.  How do you gauge FIS student and parent engagement and interest in recycling?

Strong interest and ideas aplenty! The little ones were such creative thinkers that nearly all of our recyclables ended up in the reuse bin, and we only had a single item left for the landfill bin, which is great! Our primary students engaged deeply on causes and consequences of consumption and waste. This systems thinking is a critical skill for a sustainable and healthy future and is also stimulated with the Climate Fresk game that the school uses. The parents had lots of questions about the where and how, indicating a strong interest in (and at times frustration with) our recycling options in the city.

3. What do you think we can and should do as a school community and at home to become active Climate Action ambassadors?

FIS is benefiting from a terrific group of student ambassadors, parents, teachers and staff members, that carry out a massive amount of sustainability activities related to the curriculum and the school’s operations. Moreover, we have a leadership team and a Board that actively support this agenda because they see sustainability as a critical pillar of both students’ growth and the school’s place in civil society.  But sustainability is not, cannot be the business of just a few. All members of our community need to keep learning about climate and waste, all of us need to keep tinkering at our behaviors and solutions, and all of us need to adopt the attitude that what we do at school and at home matters.

So let’s take an active interest, learn from our classmates, from our children and our colleagues, and adopt (and stick with!) climate- and resource friendlier behaviours, one habit at a time. And by demonstrating what works, others will get new ideas too (this showed very clearly during our Early Years recycling games).

4. If you had a magic wand, what changes would you like to see in our school and local Hong Kong community?

We’re all a bit our own magic wand, aren’t we?

We have the power to say no to free items that will just end up wasted the same day; to choose reusable over disposable; to head for the recycling bin rather than the rubbish bin. We need to start that change in ourselves, in our own behavior.

But we also have the power to get better reuse and recycling systems in place. Our schools, our property management companies and retailers, and our government do listen to their families, residents and customers, citizens. We—all of us— need to signal that we do not need or want individually wrapped onions, do not like our beaches and parks full of rubbish, and think it is silly to fill up our landfills when land comes at a premium. We need to make clear that the time for change is now.

5. Do you have any resources or tips you could share with us so we do an even better job in recycling?

Happy to, please see the list in the Take Action section below. We’re also thinking of doing another talk for the parents if there is interest.

Once again well done to Vie Scolaire at TKO and JL for rolling out Green Week inspiring students and parents to contribute to a greener and more conscious Hong Kong.

Take Action

The Sustainability Team

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