Eco-schools reap rewards

On a sultry June day students from Luxu primary school in Wujiang city of Jiangsu province were delighted to go outdoors, but their destination was not an amusement park or playground.

They went to an outlying reservoir where Zhang Jun, former headmaster of Luxu, led students to investigate the environment and examine water quality in its source river.

The students, aged between 8 and 11, held beakers, rulers, notebooks and pens like a group of professional specialists.

Zhang said the school began implementing educational reform in 1997 by integrating environmental education classes into the national syllabus.

"The main reason we launched the courses was a memorable experience over 10 years ago," the schoolmaster said.

He recalls a class trip to the reservoir a decade ago when students were surprised by the large number of dead fish and a drainpipe discharging wastewater from a nearby chemical plant directly into the lake.

"For a pupil it is difficult to understand why they have to save power or learn about biodiversity. But thanks to the continuous efforts on education, we turned our dream into today's 'green' school and a large number of 'experts' in environmental protection," Zhang said.

The Luxu school is an outstanding example, but only one of 119 pilot schools across China that have participated in the Environmental Education Initiatives (EEI) program since 1997.

EEI is a joint effort begun by the Ministry of Education, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and British Petroleum (BP) in July of that year.

With a goal of promoting environmental education in primary and secondary schools across the country, the EEI project was the first in China to combine the power of government departments, environmental non-government organizations (NGOs) and multinational companies, said Zhu Muju, deputy director-general of the Basic Education Department under the Ministry of Education.

In addition to the three main sponsors, the EEI program has been supported by a range of education and environmental protection organizations, including 21 green education centers, its pilot schools and three field environmental education bases.

After a decade EEI made great strides in China's environmental education, including increasing the knowledge of teachers, students and families, developing educational resources and influencing national education policy.

Its pilot schools are in 23 provinces, municipalities and regions, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hunan, Anhui, Gansu, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Tibet.

More than 5 million students have taken its world-class environmental courses designed by the WWF. Nearly 3,000 teachers have received professional and environmental protection training.

"We deliver environmental knowledge to students in class and in practice outdoors. We also encourage a green lifestyle targeting a larger range that includes family and community involvement," said Xiang Zheng, a teacher from the pilot Benxi Sishan school in Liaoning province.

Zhu said the EEI program helps students understand the interdependence of individuals, society and nature.

"We are glad to see that students can now raise an environmental protection garden, change a small pool of water into a testing ground and even make creative toys with plastic bottles and newspaper," said Gary Dirks, BP Group vice president and president of BP China.

In 2003, after six years of research and work in environmental education, EEI participants jointly drafted national environmental education guidelines for trial implementation.

In the following years, the three main EEI partners jointly held training courses across China on the guidelines.

For example, they found that environmental education in Tibet autonomous region should work toward conservation of biodiversity and in Gansu province it should focus on the problem of grassland desertification.

Other guidelines note that school courses should focus on both knowledge and building a "green" lifestyle. At universities, study should lead to high-level research.

Inspired by the EEI program, Beijing Normal University established a master's degree in environmental education.

"We are proud of building a successful model for promoting environmental education and establishing greener awareness in children," Zhu said, adding that benefits from environmental education at an early age are felt throughout life.

Although the 10-year EEI program has ended, its students' efforts on environmental education will not stop, Zhu said.

(China Daily 07/06/2009 page8)