How to train students to be environmental leaders
Event Overview
- Prize Category: Environmental Action
- Format: Immersive performance
- Country: Colombia
- 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
Institución Educativa El Castillo, a state school in Barrancabermeja, Santander, Colombia, serves a low-resourced community near a swamp where pollution presents severe problems. Recognising the serious environmental issues at stake, the school’s mission and teaching methods are centred on training leaders who will go on to transform the environment. It works to make its students environmentally conscious, encouraging them to research problems and arrive at solutions, and engages them in projects including waste management by participating in the circular economy.
The school’s student-led “Opportunity Shop Project” saw the collection of donations such as uniforms and school supplies. Parents restored them and then they were marketed to the school community at symbolic prices so that low-income students can reuse them.
At the school lab, students, parents, and science teachers make household cleaning products that are biodegradable and environmentally friendly. These are marketed in e-commerce through a digital platform created by the students.