Building environmental sustainability into the very foundations of the school
Event Overview
- Prize Category: Environmental Action
- Format: Lecture
- Country: Indonesia
- Languages: Streamed live in English with automated captions in Arabic, English, French, Filipino, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Serbian, and Spanish.
- Learn more about the Top Ten Shortlisted Schools in the Environmental Action category on the World’s Best School Prizes website.
Watch on-demand
World Education Week 2022 is streaming across social media. We will embed a live stream on this page before the event begins. We are making the live stream available directly on this page alongside the Spf.io platform. Spf.io is one of our partner organisations, and their all-in-one multilingual translation and accessibility platform is embedded and linked below. You can access a range of accessibility features from the menu in the Spf.io player.
About the school
Green School Bali, a K-12 international private school in Bali, Indonesia has woven environmentalism into the fabric of the school itself. It uses compost toilets, feeds the school pigs using leftovers from student meals made from produce in its gardens, and even has a unique network of bio buses that take children to and from campus.
Teaching a cohort of 370 students from over thirty different countries, Green School Bali seeks to connect its students with nature in the hopes of preparing them for the challenges presented by climate change and environmental degradation. The school’s philosophy has transcended borders, with branch schools opening up in New Zealand and South Africa.
Taking notes from the United Nations’ Sustainable Development goals, it plans its lessons through the lens of a greener world. But what is really unique about the school is that almost every component of its facilities and educational model is shaped to ensure environmental sustainability. In 2015, students and faculty at Green School Bali launched the Bio Bus – Indonesia’s first 100% biofuel-powered transportation system which uses recycled cooking oil. It has its own recycling and waste management service called KemBali, located just outside the school’s gates. Many within the local community continue to use it and it has been emulated in other nearby villages.
These practices are also sewn into the social lives of students. Some days a student could arrive at school, do gardening in the morning and later place their leftover food in a bucket to feed the pigs stationed on campus. Green School Bali’s compost toilets which process waste to nourish the bamboo that grows all over campus. Jokingly called “the human resource centre,” the newer toilets sport designs created by teachers and students.
Join us to learn more about weaving environmentalism into the fabric of your school
Speakers
Moderator: Leslie Medema
As Head of Campus at Green School Bali, Leslie oversees our holistic school community of faculty, students, parents and staff and all the ways we work together and support one another to deliver education for a sustainable future. Since joining Green School in 2011, Leslie, who holds a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton, has helped shape the school’s groundbreaking High School curriculum, assisted with the set up and launch of new Green Schools in New Zealand and South Africa, and coordinates the school’s continual regeneration as our school and community strives to evolve in pace with an ever-changing world. Her work, alongside Sal and the incredible educators at Green School, has elevated the school to international acclaim, attracting visits from environmentalists like Jane Goodall, Ban Ki Moon, Gunter Pauli and many others.
Speaker 1: Sal Gordon
Sal Gordon, our Head of Teaching & Learning, has been at Green School Bali (GSB) since 2013. He first joined the school to teach Mathematics and Science, later becoming Head of Middle School for two years, before moving into his current role in August 2019. Sal is a motivated and innovative educator – he is passionate about leading an education revolution. Sal believes that Green School is a model for what a school of the future needs to do and be. By educating changemakers for a sustainable future, the school is helping to drive the revolution that this planet so desperately needs.