Dunes International School, Abu Dhabi update

Posted on November 13th, 2019.

Dunes International School has been working towards environment and sustainability integrated with school curriculum. Most of the activities are uploaded in the website and ongoing will be updated soon. The following are the brief description of the activities implemented during the academic year 2019-20:
1. Garbage Enzyme:Our students prepared garbage enzyme and uses in the school.Garbage Enzyme can be used as an alternative to bleach and other cleaning compounds. This enzyme can be produced easily with the organic waste from ourkitchens. It takes out foul odors from toilet – only bleach comes close and as fast as Garbage Enzyme. Mix also with floor cleaners as we have a ‘stockpile’ of floor cleaners so have to use it all; floors is squeaky clean. If we start doing it now, we can use it to clean our environment and at the same time save money on expensivechemical cleaners and its harmless!
2. Afforestation: Afforestation is a practice that has been propagated by Dunes International School in a small way to stop over exploitation of nature. Our students planted saplings inside and outside the campus to mark the day. They have given an awareness in the classrooms and to the parents on the importance of afforestation in our society.

Mulching:We identified that making mulchfor our vegetable garden is one of the best things we can do for the health of your plants. Mulch is any material used to cover the soil to prevent weed growth, slow water loss, and prevent erosion. Mulching is an important practice in any sustainable gardens. The exterior portion of the coconut can be used to create coconut mulch. Mulching is a sustainable choice in soil engineering, both as surface mulch and a soil additive. As a result of mulching, the soil will retain its moisture for a longer period of time while reducing the chances of nutrients flowing away from the soil and surrounding garden. Weeds will also be deterred by the use of shells since its strong shells will prevent the weed roots from stretching outward into the garden’s soil structure and prevent new weed seeds from germinating on the surface.

Mud Kitchen:Dunes International School opened a mud kitchen for our Kindergarten students to explore their learning atmosphere. From pallets to recycled waste cabinets, mud kitchen is sure to keep our child’s attention.Mud kitchens are amazing spaces for sparking children’s imagination. It takes a good deal of creative thinking to transform muddy creations into culinary delights.It’s a fun way for them to explore, build, and create. To allow the children the freedom to play, explore and learn to their full extent in the mud kitchen it is really important that children are encouraged to feel the textures of the materials with their fingers, transfer liquids from one container to another to, splash, slop, stir and whizz, to create sticky mud, explore its adaptations. Tiny tots are getting a learning environment in the Mud Kitchen every day to explore themselves in an early stage.
Plastic Free Campus: Students of Dunes have taken initiative to spread the awareness in classrooms and public to reduce the usage of plastic to save our environment. The aim of the activity is to make the school plastic free. School has been achieved the target almost by removing plastic covers, plastic tiffin boxes and bottles, plastic cup for refreshments and plastic bags.
Wall Vertical garden:School gardens are a wonderful way to use the schoolyard as a classroom, reconnect students with the natural world and the true source of their food, and teach those valuable gardening and agriculture concepts and skills that integrate with several subjects. Dunes International School took an initiative to build a new wall vertical garden with students’ involvement.

vii. Exhibitiontowards Sustainability:Learning becomes eternal when there is engagement, collaboration and participation. The cross curricular link made it a memorable event for the students.Students explored fun of science using common kitchen chemicals thereby gaining an insight on entrepreneurship skills. They showed their skill in making wateroter-a new renewable energy sources, hydraulic lift, water dispenser machines, green house electricity production miniature etc.,

viii. Student Exchange Programs: We have been arranging programs on Environment and Sustainability to share the ideas with other schools by visiting them or inviting them to our school. Carried the messages to other schools by our Eco club members to spread the message of the importance of ‘Go Green’ ‘waste management’. Dunes “Nukat Natak Awareness Program” (Street Play on save the Environment) was a success, when the students came up with the solutions to save the mother earth and shared the message to the community.

Rohan- Mission Initiative: School has been supporting the mission of our student Sai Rohan Raju, for spreading the message of HH Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan to save the Environment. He was participated in Earth Hour 2019 event to take action for our planet and save nature. He was also participated in Nurdle Hunting.
Dunes Helping Hands: The school has started a club titled as “Dunes Helping Hands’ for multi-charity purpose. Our students have been doing ‘Book drive for Recycling’ project and ‘we care food drive’ to spread the message of sharing and caring as part of the club initiatives.
Extension of Programs throughout the year:
Encouraging students to bring saplingsto make a vegetable and sensory garden of their own to elevate outdoor learning experience.
Our students have taken initiatives to feed birdsby fixing up of coconut shells in the trees outside the boundary wall, created vertical garden and hydroponics and bio gas plant in the school.
Maintenance of SEED BANKat school to convey the importance of planting trees to make a beautiful environment to live in. We are preserving the seeds by collecting and keeping in the seed bank. The seeds have been packed and labeled properly in the science lab for the academic purpose too.
Green Army project: Green Army project has been taken forward with an aim to ‘Keep the Environment Green”.
‘An Idle Free Zone’has been taken forward to give awareness to school bus drivers and parents on carbon emission and the importance of saving energy.