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Students challenged to think about impact of garbage on life
by The Daily Herald
Posted: Mar 27, 2006 15:27 UTC
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PHILIPSBURG - Students of the Windward Islands are being taught about the impact of garbage on their quality of life and health through the Waste Watchers programme, carried out by Nature Foundation St. Maarten, Saba Conservation Foundation and Stenapa in St. Eustatius.
This is the groups’ second educational programme on environmental care, which started in January. A total of 42 classes of nine primary and two secondary schools on all three islands are participating in this intensive project of eight class visits and a clean-up. To date, educational coordinator Dominique Vissenberg has visited most classes three or four times.
“Students are challenged to start thinking about the daily impact of their garbage on the environment. They experience that they have a choice with every action they take to make garbage or not, and if they make garbage, the choice to litter or not. As recycling facilities are limited on these islands, the lessons focus on the importance of not making garbage at all,” she said.
Third grade teacher Mariette Schrijvers of Sister Regina Primary School in Simpson Bay has already observed some positive outcome from the lessons. “Since the start of the lessons, I have noticed a lot of changes in my students’ behaviour,” she said.
“My students are more aware of their contribution to the waste problem and truly try to make efforts not to produce more than necessary. The students have cleaned the school’s playground every day and last week I told them to work harder, as they found only two pieces of garbage, but it appeared to be all there was.”
Elementary Coordinator of Learning Unlimited Brigitte van der Waals is also excited about the changes she has noticed in her students. “Although they have always been quite conscious of their environment and the importance of treating Mother Nature well, they now seem to be more conscious of the choices they make.”
Vissenberg, who designed the project and carries out the majority of the school visits, is also very content with the results so far. “It is a difficult topic to teach and it needed a lot of creative thinking and some evaluations after tryout lessons to fit the message in a shape that students would enjoy.”
She continued, “Although you would think they notice the amount of garbage and littering on our island, most students don’t automatically make the connection to their own actions. Capri Suns, Chubbies, plastic plates and wrapping foil end up in the bin, if not on the playground, after every lunch, which in one class appeared to add up to four kilos.”
One of the exercises is to have students sort their lunch garbage and come up with ideas of things they could do differently during lunch to reduce the amount of garbage, such as instead of throwing each item away, considering if it would be possible to reuse it or choose something else to use that doesn’t need throwing away.
In all cases, using a lunch box and a drinking cup reduced their big pile to almost no garbage, Vissenberg said. From the difference this simple task created, she is trying to obtain funding to supply every student with a lunch kit. “If students of the approximately 300 classes here would also use them, a reduction of 300 to 500 kilos of garbage a day by all schools could be expected.”
The challenge is not just a matter of supplying these kits, but students and their parents also need to be convinced of the importance of using them and making the little bit of extra effort that it takes to keep it and clean it after using, she said.
Nature Foundation has space for new schools to sign up in St. Maarten after Easter. Interested schools can call Vissenberg at 542-0267 or e-mail Dominique@naturefoundationsxm.org .
The programme is sponsored by Development Bank of the Netherlands Antilles USONA and approved and coordinated by the Central Government Department of Public Health and Environment MINA.
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