Environmental Workshop "Surabaya Dreaming" 2003

Tunas Hijau Club Indonesia and Millennium Kids Australia have organized Environmental Workshop “Surabaya Dreaming” in Surabaya, 1 – 5 July 2003.  This is professional development curriculum program that helped teachers see how their work in the classroom is vital to changing the attitudes of people in their local community with regard to environmental management. The program looks at the children in the school having a pivotal role in changing community attitudes. The program is part of A Cross Cultural Environmental Education Exchange Australia Indonesia.

The workshop series includes:

1. Professional Development Session with Teachers.

An introductory session for teachers providing the theory behind the Millennium Kids approach – Ten Steps to a Green Teams Project, a multi stakeholder process for addressing environmental concerns in the community through a youth focus group. 

2. Practical Sessions With Children 

The practical sessions with children have had the students working through the program with the outcomes presented at the end of the week. Children took on the role of researchers, interviewers and photographers and set up a community display to record the changes in the local community over the last one hundred years.

Teachers have assisted with running workshops and acting as observers and facilitators during the week.

Surabaya Dreaming

Children began the week researching the history of Surabaya with students divided into research teams – WATER, NATIVE ANIMALS, TREES, WASTE AND AIR. An excursion to a Botanical garden in Purwodadi – Pasuruan have enabled children to research the  history of the native plants of Java (TREES), research native animal habitats (NATIVE ANIMALS), prepare a rubbish free lunch through local food preparation (WASTE) and test water and air quality from a variety of sources (WATER).  From this research, they will create a vision for their community.

Research groups determined the things in their community that they like and the things that they would like to change or solve. Children collated their ideas, brainstormed problems and possible solutions and identified problems they can actually solve.

A clean up of the community in the immediate vicinity of the school has enabled students to conduct a survey of the rubbish found in the area.  The students wrote a report about the amount of waste found. Children then made recommendations to local government, corporates and community, and presented recommendations to local dignitaries.

Millennium Kids facilitators have had workshop the elements that make a successful Community Service Announcement.   The children have had the opportunity to write and record a 30-second musical Community Service Announcement about local environmental issues. Tunas Hijau Club shave sought in-kind support from local radio stations in Surabaya who has interviewed the children about their environmental concerns and played their Community Service Announcements. 

Children have presented their plan to schools for implementation.(*)