As part of the EWWR 2023, the EkoSkola committee at SBC Middle School Kirkop takes part in a series of actions, activities, information sessions and educational outings. Our action is called ‘Green is our favourite colour’ since the aim of our actions is to make our school and our locality greener, both in terms of planting trees and in terms of being more environmentally friendly, by reducing waste. Our action is divided into 5 sub-actions.

 

1. Tree planting

The main focus of our EWWR action is to plant trees and shrubs in our school to make it greener and to help reduce pollution. “Planting trees sequesters carbon from the atmosphere, helps stabilize land, mitigates pollution and prevents evaporation of moisture from dirt. It’s thus helping fight climate change, as well as cleaning the air and water.” (United Nations Climate Change, 2023). This action involves the following activities:

• Planting 8 fruit trees in pots to embellish our grounds and respect locally produced food which has a much lower carbon footprint.
• Planting endemic shrubs in our soil patch to preserve local ecosystems.
• Information session with gardening teachers regarding Mediterranean trees and shrubs.
• Watering the trees and shrubs in the school grounds.
• Removing the weeds and cleaning the shrub area.
• Gardening sessions with various classes in our school greenhouses.
• Monitoring trees and shrubs.
• Gardening session with a Polish Erasmus student group.

 

2. Waste sorting / reduction

The second action focuses on waste sorting and waste reduction. In this action, recycling bins and organic bins are placed in every room in the school. This facilitates waste sorting for our students and staff members. Waste is monitored to ensure that all the school community is committed to sort waste.

A ‘SWAP don’t SHOP’  activity is organised at school. This activity encourages students to reduce waste by swapping their items, instead of buying new ones.

These activities contribute to make our school greener by reducing waste and also promotes the idea of handing down unwanted items to maximise the earth’s resources.

 

3. Clean-ups

Clean-up activities are important as they contribute towards a cleaner and greener planet, help save animal and plant species, and create awareness. They also instil a sense of civic responsibility in the students, and a sense of respect to those who work in the cleaning sector. For this action, our students participate in a school ground clean-up and a community clean-up in Kirkop. This action makes students more aware of the amount of litter that is dumped illegally into our environment and it encourages them not to litter, to contribute towards a cleaner and greener environment.

 

4. Olives

As a school we are lucky to have a good number of olive trees surrounding our premises. If olives are not picked up, they end up being wasted, while also causing unnecessary litter in the yard and ring road, which could even cause accidents as it becomes slippery when wet.  This is a shame, when considering that the olive is such a good food staple and part of our traditional cuisine. This action involves harvesting olives from our school olive trees. Some of the olives are preserved using the traditional salt method, while the rest of the olives are pressed for oil. The preserved olives and the olive oil are sold to staff and students. The fundraising money is invested back into the school, to organise other environmentally friendly activities. This action involves being part of a circular community and raises awareness about the beauty of nature, supplying us with good food, and it also raises awareness that food should not be wasted.   Moreover, students are encouraged to try preserving olives using the traditional salt method at home so that good traditions are kept alive.

 

5. Educational outings

Educational outings have many benefits for students, including hands-on learning, experiential learning, enhancing social skills, enriching the curriculum with cross-curricular thematic teaching, reinforcing classroom material and creating lifelong memories. Our EkoSkola students participate in a number of educational visits, that support the actions taken in our project. These include:

• Visit to the Water conservation centre in Rabat, where we will have a session regarding using water sustainably.
• Historical, environmental and human environment outings for various classes.
• Visit an olive pressing facility to extract olive oil.