OUR SCHOOL THINKS GREEN Mira de Aire and Alvados Secondary School PORTUGAL
WE CARE!
• Hello everyone! • Our school has about 600 students (K-12) and environmental concerns are present in our every day life as a school community. • In this presentation we will show you some of the projects we have implemented throughout this school year, projects that make us proud, as we have already been able to achieve some changes towards environmental awareness. • Our projects started in September 2011 and will end in July 2012.
The school community helped getting the necessary amount of plastic bottles to build the tree
RESULT
The tree was mainly built by 12th grade students after classes
COLLABORATION
To show that it was possible to build a Christmas tree with reused materials
STUDENT INVOLVEMENT
PURPOSE
CHRISTMAS TREE Undoubtful innovation and creativity, the local newspaper published an article about it
BUILDING OUR OWN LANDFILL CONTEXT • This project was done in the Natural Science classes with 8th grade students • It is being carried out in April, May and June • Students have been participating actively in the selection of materials, research and implementation of the project • This project has enhanced their learning beyong the regular classroom curriculum
PURPOSE • To learn about the importance of landfills and how they work • To understand one of the most common methods of dealing with waste materials • To test the microbial degrading process of landfills • To determine which solid waste materials are biodegradable
TWIST PROJECT PURPOSE: CONTEXT:
“Twist” is a project for secondary school students. It deals with energy efficiency and climate change.
To promote energy efficiency and environmental concerns in our school and among young children (6 to 9-year-old children). We believe children have the ability to change their parents’ attitudes towards the environment.
TARGET: PROMOTERS: 10th grade students in collaboration with the school library
School community
Primary school students DURATION: Throughout this school year
TWIST PROJECT
PROCEDURES • Students started with about energy efficiency. They were glad to see that most people already had some sort of environmental awareness and energy efficiency concerns. •
After the surveys their mission was to determine . They concluded that energy and water consumption were a bit high and noticed that the school could adopt some measures to reduce them.
TWIST PROJECT
PROCEDURES • Based on their diagnosis, students informed the school headmaster about what he should do to solve some of the problems detected. They also decided to display about energy efficiency tips so that both students and teachers could adopt an environmentally-friendly behaviour. • Number of lamps in the classroom • Lamp voltage • What people can save if they turn off the lamps after classes
• What people waste if they do not turn off the lamps after classes
TWIST PROJECT
PROCEDURES • •
• •
Students then decided to hold aimed at . Their goal was to promote energy efficiency and environmental awareness. They also wanted to motivate these young students to have an active involvement in their community while promoting a sustainable environment. They worked in close collaboration with the school library. The result of the information sessions was amazing and made them feel very well. The goals were accomplished and they noticed that .
Two of the information sessions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7GFjFbq3aU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45onO_h7vE8
RECYCLED CARNIVAL MASKS Our school promotes a Carnival Parade every year.
It is a big event in which all students and teachers participate.
Our art teacher decided to do something different with her students this year: Carnival masks made with recycled materials only.
Turn the page to see the results! ď Š
ECO-BATTERY PROJECT Our school is also participating in the eco-battery project this year
AIM: to collect used batteries so that they can be recycled
We want to prevent people from throwing away used batteries, so we have placed specific containers for disposal of used batteries all over our school
PLANTING TREES Our National Tree Day was celebrated on March 21st
We are aware of the importance of trees and we wanted to do something positive for the environment at the same time
We worked in collaboration with the Mayor and local authorities (town council)
So we decided to plant some trees in our school
We are proud of our olive trees! ď Š
CARING FOR OUR SCHOOL Students are aware of the importance of school in their lives. A clean school makes it even more pleasant to be there. 8th grade students decided to promote cleaning activities so that other students can adopt an environmentally-friendly behaviour and keep their school clean.
This has been happening on a regular basis, one time per month. They have also drawn some posters, which were placed all over our school, to promote environmental awareness.
« ECO-POINTS » “Eco-points” are recycling containers in Portugal
We have “ecopoints” spread all over our school
Some of them were even made by our students. All classrooms have their own recyling containers
CLASSROOM
HEADMASTER’S OFFICE
TEACHERS’ ROOM
ECO-SCHOOL PROJECT • We are also participating in the Eco-Schools Project. This project is promoted by the Foundation for Environmental Education, a non-governmental and nonprofit organization.
• The aim of this project is to promote sustainable development through environmental education (formal school education, training of staff and general awareness raising).
• We try to raise awareness for a sustainable environment in our school community every day through our projects and actions.
Plastic bottles as flowers
Plastic balls as foam
MESSAGE TO THE 7 BILLION PEOPLE After watching the documentary “Home”, by Arthus Bertrand, and in celebration of the 7 billion people in our planet…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz9yOgYqqCw
WORD CLOUDS As part of an eTwinning project 9th grade students were asked to accomplish a creative task related to the environment...
Environment and eTwinning
They decided to create some word cloud pictures (using Tagxedo application)
Collecting plastic, cell phones and paper Plastic
Paper
Besides our many projects, we are also collecting plastic, used cell phones and paper for organizations that ask for our help
Cell phones
Bottle caps
Plastic campaign
Cell phone campaign
Paper campaign
Plastic bottle cap campaign
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
•
Energy efficiency, sustainable environment, environmentally-friendly behaviour, environmental awareness, are all part of our . Today’s youngsters will be tomorrow’s leaders and it is as teachers to prepare them well for a .
•
With these projects we, both students and teachers, feel that . Our projects are mostly and we like to see students take the lead in investigation, research and implementation. We do believe these projects improve and beyond the regular classroom curriculum.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
were used in our projects as often as possible and we also try paper in our school by creating and using electronic documents instead of printing them.
•
The main aim of our projects is others – younger and older students, school staff and even teachers – as well as parents and our . We often write to the local newspaper to keep the community informed about what we are doing and sometimes even ask for their help and/or .
•
The of these projects meets their designed goals and we keep promoting them.
CREDITS Done by:
In collaboration with:
Miguel, F.
Camponês, J.
Special thanks to: Rosário, J. Torres, A.
CHRISTMAS TREE teacher(s) in charge: Monteiro, F. Antunes, J.
TWIST PROJECT
CARNIVAL MASKS
ECO-BATTERY PROJECT
PLANTING TREES
teacher(s) in charge:
teacher(s) in charge:
teacher(s) in charge:
teacher(s) in charge:
Camponês, J.
Filipe, S.
Camponês, J.
Almeida, J.
ECO-SCHOOL
MESSAGE TO THE 7 BILLION
teacher(s) in charge:
PEOPLE
Matias, R.
teacher(s) in charge:
Camponês, J.
Miguel, F.
“ECO-POINTS” teacher(s) in charge:
Camponês, J.
WORD CLOUDS teacher(s) in charge:
Miguel, F.
LANDFILL teacher(s) in charge: Dias, P.
“CARING FOR OUR SCHOOL” PROJECT
teacher(s) in charge: Monteiro, I.
“COLLECTING PLASTIC, PAPER AND CELL PHONES” PROJECT teacher(s) in charge: Almeida, J.
CREDITS SCHOOL WALL
Escola Secundรกria de Mira de Aire e Alvados Mira de Aire and Alvados Secondary School PORTUGAL