Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Integration of Education for Sustainability in Low-budget Schools: Examples from a Costa Rician Green School

Wed, April 17, 8:00 to 9:30am, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Bay (Level 1), Bayview B

Proposal

The global recognition of the benefits of green schools at an operational, educational, environmental, and community level is growing and reaching more educators and school administrators around the globe. This is true in both developed and developing nations. Research on the social, academic, and emotional benefits that students receive when attending green schools (Barr et al., 2014; Izadpanahi et al., 2015; Kats, 2016) shows that children’s environmental attitudes and behaviors are cultivated when attending schools that integrate sustainability into their physical design. Studies and advanced research have also shown the direct relationship between green infrastructure and practices with lower operational costs for schools and increased environmental benefits for surrounding communities (Izadpanahi et al., 2015; NEETF, 2000). Moreover, the preservation of regions with great ecological and cultural importance can be achieved through the empowerment of the surrounding communities and its younger generations, especially through the application of frameworks and guidelines for integrating whole-school sustainability (Barr et al., 2014) at schools located in such regions.

One school that integrated a whole-school sustainability approach while operating with financial restraints was Guanacaste International Academy. Located in the north Pacific coast of Costa Rica, the school resides in a region that holds some of the country’s most important marine and national parks. This K-12 private school successfully delivered an academically challenging bilingual educational program for over 7 years, while focusing on providing financial aid to 70% of its local student population. With a focused effort towards social sustainability, the school’s ultimate goal was to provide an education that would create young adults that could actively shape their communities’ present and future and thus protect its natural and cultural heritage.

Through her experiences as the school’s founder and academic principal, the researcher explores the many challenges faced when integrating the concepts behind whole-school sustainability by educational programs and academic institutions that operate with low-budgets. These include educating teachers and school administrators on what is education for sustainability and its implied benefits; training educators on how to create bilingual academic content that meets educational standards while addressing a social and environmental agenda; and applying teaching methodologies that promote academic excellence along with environmental and social literacy.

The researcher’s discussion will also include the many effective approaches that were followed at Guanacaste International Academy during the design and implementation of a bilingual curriculum that met the different standards and requirements of educational accreditation systems, including governmental and private. The discussion will also address how the academic program was built to promote cross collaboration between teachers from different subjects and grades; the type of evaluation mechanisms that were used to respect the individuality of the learners and to assess knowledge through non-traditional mechanisms; and how community outreach and environmental hands-on projects were developed through multi-subject lesson plans with the involvement of the parent community and the school’s neighbors.

Author