A record high number of schools – 75 in all – received the international Green Flag certificate which confirms active involvement of pupils and teachers in environmental activities in and around the school. An additional 95 schools were also presented with the national Local Centre for Environmental Action certificate. Thanks to this initiative, started and managed by the Polish Environmental Partnership Foundation (PEPF) more and more schools in Poland are achieving a world-class level of environmental education.
The certificate ceremony took place during the 9th annual national conference of the Schools for Sustainable Development programme on May 28th, 2010 in Warsaw. Of the 33,000 schools in Poland, of these 75 are certified by international Green Flag of the Eco – Schools program. These numbers speak for themselves – Polish schools are beginning to take the environment seriously. – These were the opening words of Małgorzata Łuszczek – the coordinator of the PEPF’s Schools for Sustainable Development Programme, which awards certificates for schools which actively engage in protecting the environment and conserving natural resources.
To be eligible to receive a certificate for environmental achievement, a school has to come up with an interesting environmental project which promotes greater environmental awareness and action, and then implement it. There are a lot of different activities that a school can do, from recycling to water and energy efficiency schemes – explains Rafał Serafin, the director of the Polish Environmental Partnership Foundation, which presents these eco-awards.
Our path to receiving the certificate involved installing energy-efficient lightbulbs in the school, setting up recycling bins, installing faucet aerators which conserve wate and aquastats/timers which help regulate the electric boilers in use on school property– says Aldona Cyranowicz, a school teacher at the Janusz Korczak Elementary School No. 2 in Błonie, one of the participating schools.
To obtain the Green Flag certificate, the school has to follow a seven-step process. At the beginning, each school has to develop its own environmental code, or eco-code, and set up a working group which will manage the project. The next step has the school carrying out an audit, which is designed to review the environmental performance of the school before it launches its environmental project. To be able to evaluate the project activities, the audit is repeated right after the project is completed. For the entire length of the project, the school activities are monitored and evaluated by experts, who look among other things at the extent to which the project activities are integrated with the curriculum and gauge how involved the local community is.
The schools awarded the Green Flag certificate at the conference completed all of these requirements and join 4,500 other Green Flag schools from all over the world. The Green Flag certificate is presented to outstanding schools worlwide within the framework of the Eco-Schools Programme (www.eco-schools.com), which currently involves some 15,000 schools from 47 countries in Europe, Africa, South America, Asia and Oceania.
The national conference also saw 95 Polish schools being awarded the Local Centre for Environmental Action (LCEA) certificate, which recognizes the first level of achievement needed before applying for the Green Flag certificate. Both certificates are valid for one year, after which schools re-apply for them. This year’s LCEA recipients are very likely going to apply for the international Greek Flag certificate next year – says Małgorzata Łuszczek.
And that’s probably how it’ll turn out, because participating in the Schools for Sustaianble Development Programme is not just a question of prestige, a chance at promotion, but also a way to secure grants to kick-start the first environmental actions in and around the school. Thanks to the Programme grant we were able to create and link up a series of sites to form the Kozienicka Primeval Forest Ecomuseum “Two Worlds” and also the Forest Garden. These are the only places in town which are adapted for holding environmental classes and are designed as an outdoor learning tool – says Edyta Rutkowska-Ferchichi, teacher at the Jan Kochanowski Gymnasium No. 1 in Pionki.
The Selection Committee – which includes representatives of the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of National Education, Toyota, Cadbury and Environmental Foundation “Green Action” and others – this year decided to also grant a special award for a school in Burkina Faso which has been closely cooperating with the PEPF. The director of the Laberthonniere agricultural school from Burkina Faso was present to receive the award and spoke about the school he had founded. The gymnasium is in many ways very different from the schools we are used to working with. Apart from standard French language lessons, maths or chemistry, the pupils of the College Laberthonniere also get practical knowledge in how to grow crops and raise animals – with this end in mind a pig pen and a sheep barn have been built (with the support of the Polish Environmental Partnership Foundation and the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Schools in Burkina Faso are something more than simply a school – their role lies not only in educating youth, but also in empowering local communities and helping raise a young generation which will contribute to the economic and social development of the country.
During the conference, the participants helped raise a total of 487,40 PLN for the Burkina Faso school. We would like to extend our great thanks to all who contributed funds.
