Making NAIS more environmentally friendly
Print Edition
WE are all very much aware of climate change and the potential devastating impacts it could have on our planet.
In recent years there has been an unprecedented level of warming in our atmosphere. Since 1981 we have experienced 20 of the hottest years on record, according to NASA. Extreme weather events such as typhoons and cyclones are becoming more frequent and stronger.
Whilst some of these events don’t directly impact us, the choices that we make can directly affect others. Conscious of our global environmental footprint, the students of the NAIS Pudong Environmental Group are striving to make our local environment a more sustainable place, and our focus this term is to make our school campus more energy efficient.
Using the Eco Schools format, we embarked on an energy audit to see exactly how much energy our school campus was using. We realized that lots of energy was being wasted by computers left on standby, air conditioning units left running and lights left on in empty classrooms. Of course, this energy wastage is easy to solve, but what isn’t easy is getting people to listen and act upon the results of our audit. If we are to become more sustainable and eco-friendly we need to have the cooperation of our whole school community. So we began informing our community of the results at assemblies. We used shocking facts from the Carbon Trust to get people to listen and take action. For example, did you know that office lights left on overnight use enough energy in a year to heat a home for almost five months?
We are pleased to say that we have seen a significant decrease in the number of computers, lights and air conditioning units that have been left on. We still complete our audits on a half-termly basis around the school, investigating the number of computers, heaters and lights that were left on at night after school hours. We report the results in school assemblies and ensure that the most energy efficient departments are commended on their efforts, whereas the departments that did not perform as well were reminded of their responsibilities.
In the near future, we are hoping to promote the importance of sustainability further through Green Week which will see us implement a new recycling project and food waste project. We feel that it is essential that we promote these efforts. We hope that we can start raising awareness for water and sanitation issues, through the UNICEF Tap Project. This is a program that encourages everyone to leave their phones for 10 minutes, so that we stop texting, calling and emailing. The overall purpose of this is to raise awareness about how hard it is to go 10 minutes without our phones — something much less important than clean water.
Our goal this is to make our school more aware of our environment.
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