Environment Workshop By Kids Of SD Johannes Gabriel For Kids Of SDN Tambaksari I And Workshop At SMA St Stanislaus

James Ogilvie – England

Surabaya- Today was a very busy day with Tunas Hijua in Surabaya. This morning we returned to Johannes Gabriel primary school to run another workshop with the children there. We divided the class into two groups; half went to make compost and half went to make biopori. It was a lot cooler this morning as it was cloudy, but unfortunately it did not last very long! I helped the children make biopori in their garden, which was fun but very hot by the time we began digging. Half of the children in my group dug holes with the metal bore while the other half collected leaves to fill the holes with. The children really enjoyed the task and are getting very good at it.

After returning to the classroom and discussing the activities, we asked each group to prepare a presentation to explain to children in a different school how to make compost and biopori. They were all very excited by this as we took them to a school nearby their school, called SDN Tambaksari I Surabaya. It was also a primary school, but was not as nice as Johannes Gabriel as it was quite dirty and had a lot of rubbish around the school grounds. When we got there we were introduced to the headteacher and some of the other teachers, and then we asked the children from Johannes Gabriel to explain about making compost and biopori to the children from SDN Tambaksari I Surabaya.

Afterwards, we divided them into two groups again and went out to make biopori and compost in the grounds of SDN Tambaksari I. All the children got on really well and were very successful with the tasks. I think this was a really good activity for both sets of children, as the children from Johannes Gabriel really enjoyed going to SDN Tambaksari I and teaching the children there, and the children from SDN Tambaksari I really seemed to enjoy learning from the other children how to do these activities.

The second school we visited today was called St Stanislaus, which was a senior high school in Surabaya. The school was very nice and clean and had lots of trees and plants around the school grounds. We ran a workshop here with a group of students where we started by sending them out to survey their school grounds to see what improvements they thought could be made to the school environment. We divided them into four groups and asked them to present their findings to the rest of their class once we returned from surveying the school. The students were very enthusiastic and interested, and came up with some good observations and ideas. We also asked them to come up with an environmentally themed ‘jingle’ which was quite funny!

The main point that the students came up with was that although the school has different bins for organic and non-organic waste, nobody seems to use them for the correct type of rubbish and some people still throw litter on the floor. They also observed that they have a water problem as they have so many plants and trees and the ground is very hard and dry. Afterwards, I gave a presentation to the students about the environment and the recycling issues in England.

Once we finished with the students in St Stanislaus, it was the turn of the teachers! About twenty teachers from the school came to hear my presentation about Eco-Schools in England, to see how the program could be adopted in Indonesia. The teachers were very interested in my presentation and asked many questions about how the scheme works in England.