The ultimate goal of environmental education is to improve the environment and prevent its degradation while sustaining its wellbeing. Students should take up different projects that allow them a powerful understanding of environmental issues and the challenges that the human race faces.
We, at Al Ittihad National Private School, believe in practicing sustainability rather than preaching it. We believe that if our youngsters have sustainable practices embedded in their activities, it will lead them to a better future, a future that they deserve. Our school is committed to the intellectual and personal development of each student by providing them with programs that inspire and empower them to become active national and global citizens. As educators we are expected to build cognitive, intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies. What better way to do so than by educating our students on the issues that endanger our environment every day? We believe in engaging our students in projects that embed sustainability as a practice into their daily lives.
One of the projects that we are successfully undertaking is managing our waste by
segregating, reducing, reusing and recycling. Through segregation, waste is transformed into useful materials. We recycle plastic water bottles and exchange them with “Simply bottles” for T-shirts, caps and bags .We also change quite a good amount of Paper into recyclable material. Finally we make art pieces from waste.
As for our healthy food initiative, we believe in an “ A healthy body breeds a healthy mind” philosophy, so we encourage our young ones to eat vegetables and fruits daily, and to plant vegetables and take care of them. As part of our initiative we also built a green house in school that supplies our students with lettuce, green peppers and tomatoes.
A good way we have adopted to engage the entire school is by planning various awareness campaigns in celebration of environmental days such as World Health Day, Clean up Arabia Day, International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, World Cleanup Day, Arab Agricultural Day, and Houbara Conservation Day. This gives the students an opportunity to raise awareness within their community on the day while highlighting its importance to the UAE.
In order to fully engage our students, a number of students were selected as Sustainable Ambassadors, which is a program, sponsored by Mubadala Company (MASDAR). As part of this program, students are provided with opportunities to develop their core knowledge, skills training, work experience and networking skills through various events and workshops. These workshops challenge the students to allow them to develop as individuals and prepare them for Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, which we have been taking part in for several years.
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