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Green School Project
About Green School Project
The NPCC will be conducting two day training on 20 th and 29 th January respectively to train secondary school teachers as facilitators for the Green School Project (GSP). The GSP is a joint Ministry of Education, Culture & Human Resource, Ministry of Environment & NDU and NPCC programme.
GSP fits into the Green Productivity Programme initiated by the NPCC in order to ensure students involvement, understanding and application of solutions to environmental issues.
The aim of Green Schools is to increase students and participant awareness of environmental issues and transferring the knowledge acquired while participating in this project into positive environmental action in the school and also in the community at large.
This programme provides tremendous opportunities for children to learn about ecological sustainability, environmental health, nutrition, personal responsibility and leadership through their hands-on participation in making their own schools healthier, more efficient, sustainable and pleasant centres for learning.
Getting Started
Each school will set up a Green School team that will be responsible to implement the Green School Project.
The Green School team may include:
- Students (representatives of different year groups from the whole school)
- Staff members
- Non-teaching staff
- Parents
- Representatives of enterprises
The GSP is designed to be flexible. It is important to decide how the team will keep the rest of the school informed about decisions and involved in the projects that will take place. Possible channels of communication include assembly presentations and the school notice board.
The role of the team is to:
- Implement the Green School Project according to the guidelines set in the Green School Manual namely:
- Conduct a Walk Through Survey to identify opportunity for improving the school environment and in particular the resource use efficiency
- Collect and analyse data
- Prepare action plan
- Responsible for the implementation of actions
- Ensure that the whole school is aware of the GSP
- Ensure a maximum number of students, teachers….is involved in the implementation of the project.
The Green School Committee team should decide where and how it will meet. The team must also keep records of their decisions which should be minuted.
Tips:
How to conduct effective meetings
- Decide on the day, date, time duration and place of the meeting
- Create an agenda
- Communicate to all team members
- Conduct the meeting sticking to the specific agenda.
- Keep an attendance schedule
- Encourage and motivate all the members for active participation.
- The proceedings of the meetings must be recorded in the Minute Book and / or Project Book
- Sharing of responsibilities voluntarily.
- Maintain discipline and decorum.
- Close the meeting at the scheduled time and thank members for attending.
The Walk through Survey (WTS)
Now that your Green School Team (GST) has been set up, the next step is to carry out a WTS on your school premises.
The WTS should be carried out by the GST of your school and will give a realistic picture of the current environmental performance. It will tell you what you are doing well and what you might need to work on. It will help you decide, a priori, on the changes that need to be made and the urgency of these changes.
Where do I start?
- Establish a starting point and end at the same point – The WTS should cover the whole school – those places that are commonly used as well as those less used.
- Observe, take pictures & note down all the problems however trivial they may seem and take pictures
- Record keeping – Make a list of all problems observed
- Decide on which of those groups are most important by establishing a scoring system. This will help you decide which problems to tackle first.
You may choose to group according to the following areas:
- Solid wastes (Litter, plastic)
- Water
- Electrical energy
- Transport
Tips:
- It is important to properly plan the WTS. It is a good idea to have a briefing with all members before the WTS. The briefing should cover the scope, provide a basic physical description of the school (that could be a map) – note down all the hotspots on the map, time schedule and observation skills.
- A debriefing session after the WTS is also advised and should consist of reactions from the members, questions that are critical (areas of further data collection).
Action Plan
Now that you have completed your Walk Through Survey (WTS) and categorized and rated your problems, you are ready to develop your Action Plan.
How do I develop an Action Plan?
- Look at the results of your WTS
- Look at the scores you allocated to each problem after the WTS. Prioritise the problems. The problems with the highest scores will have to be tackled first.
- Decide on what actions you can take to improve these issues.
- Decide on what your measure of success will be. For example, if you decide to tackle energy, your measure could be looking for a reduction in the school energy bills.
- Decide on the timescales for each action. When do you want to achieve your target? In a few weeks or by the end of the term?
- Assign responsibility to all members of the Green School Team for each action.
- Complete your Action Plan. Do not be over ambitious. Failing to meet targets or deadlines can be demotivating.
Tips:
For better results make sure that you involve the whole school in delivering your actions and that the Head of School supports your Action Plan.
It is much better to go forward in small steps and celebrate success frequently!
Remember, you may use the sample Action Plan provided on http://www.npccmauritius.com/elearning
Monitoring and Evaluation
You have already worked out your Action Plan and started implementation. This is where you actually see the changes taking place.
How do I monitor progress?
To find out whether or not you are successfully achieving the targets laid out in your Action Plan, you should monitor and measure your progress. Are there any gaps between your actual measures and your targeted measures? This will allow you to judge the success of your activities and plan any necessary changes. Continuous monitoring process built-in your system will help you to achieve your goals through problem-solving and sustained interest in the programme throughout the school.
Useful tips
The monitoring methods that you will use will depend on the targets and measurement criteria laid down in your Action Plan.
- Take photographs at all stages – before, during and after photographs to show the progress of specific initiatives
- If you have chosen to tackle energy, analysis of meter readings and calculation of energy bills will show the effect of the energy-saving action
- Weighing / counting litter items or waste collected for recycling to show the effects of litter / recycling initiatives
- Using questionnaires and surveys to gauge opinion and record data.
- A wonderful way of producing real data to show how effective your actions have been could be done by measuring your School's Global Footprint. This can apply to several areas you have decided to address namely: Waste, Energy, Travel, Water… http://hdr.undp.org/en/climatechange/footprints/
- If you did not achieve your targeted measure of success then ask yourself ‘why?' 5 times until you find out the root cause of the problem. Take corrective measures.
The responsibility of the GST
The GST should ensure:
- The project book is updated on an on-going basis
- The results of the monitoring exercises are displayed for everyone in the school to see (e.g pictures showing before and after scenarios, graphs, charts…)
- Involve and keep the whole school updated with the progress towards the achievement of the objectives
- Use assembly sessions to celebrate your achievements
Evaluation
Evaluation will occur at two stages throughout the project:
• mid-term and
• at the end of your project
It will show the impact that the Green School Project has had on your school.
For additional information on Monitoring and Evaluation, log on to:
http:// www.npccmauritius.com/e-learning
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