Green Schools

Establishing Green Schools

The ‘Green School’ concept is rooted in carrying out a school’s basic educational functions with sustainable development as its guiding principle, channelling environmentally sound management practices into overall day-to-day management, and making full use of all resources and opportunities within and outside the school for improving the environmental literacy of teachers and students.

The establishment of the national Green School project was for the first time put forward and initiated within the ‘National Environmental Education and Communication Action Porgramme (1996-2010)’, which was jointly promulgated by the National Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Education and the SEPA in 1996, and upon which the ‘Green Series’ was initiated. The ‘Green Series’, based on the assimilation and summary of international Eco-School and Green School establishment experiences, aims at bringing about national environmental education activities tailored to Chinese circumstances. A leading group of the national Green School project was set up consisting of leaders responsible for this project at the Ministry of Education and SEPA. SEPA has taken the lead in showing responsibility for the examination and appraisal of national-level Green Schools every two years. At the same time, by working closely together with education departments, specific guidance for the establishment and management of nationwide Green Schools at all levels could be given. Every year, a conference on the work of national Green Schools is held. Green Schools range from kindergartens, primary and middle to vocational schools.

In Nov. 2000, the Ministry of Education and SEPA on the national level jointly commended the first 105 advanced schools and 22 outstanding organising units of Green School activities. In March 2003, another 179 advanced schools, 78 advanced staff members, 177 gardening awards and 23 outstanding organising units of Green School activities were officially announced. Thus altogether 284 Green Schools received official praise. According to the statistics, the total number of Green Schools at all levels has risen from 3207 in 2000 to 17636 in 2004. Among these, 3144 are on the provincial level, 7723 on the city level and 6373 on the county level. Currently, 2% of all primary and middle schools in China are Green Schools.

Green Schools are divided into those on the national level, provincial level, city and county level. All EPBs and education departments at each level are supposed to form leading groups for the establishment of Green Schools, draw up detailed assessment standards suited to local conditions in accordance with the 10 national key assessment standards, as well as organise assessment, training and exchange activities.

The 10 national key assessment standards are the following:
　(1) Establish a leading Green School institution, appoint an ‘Environmental Supervisor’ at the school, clearly divide tasks and assign them to the different positions. Draw up a feasible plan for Green School establishment.
　(2) The school should provide support in terms of funding, materials and technology to all kinds of environmental education activities.
　(3) There should be strong environmental management measures in place at the school, reflecting the environmental protection concept. Tangible results are to be achieved by implementing environmental protection measures, such as reducing pollution and waste, economising on and recycling resources, saving energy, etc.
　(4) Green School archives should consist of complete original data and documents, clearly categorised, multi-media, and accumulated over time.
　(5) Integrate environmental education into every school subject for excellent results.
　(6) Develop environmental education research, encourage teachers to take part in continued education with environmental contents and interrelated training.
　(7) Schools should have an evident environmental education and communication atmosphere, with high environmental awareness of teachers and students, and active participation in all kinds of environmental activities.
　(8) Schools should advocate environmentally friendly life-styles for teachers and students within their communities as well as for the individual life, so that preference is consciously given to environmentally friendly practices.
　(9) Schools ought to undertake efforts to make school yards greener and more beautiful, so as to offer an excellent work and study environment for teachers and students.
　(10) Students should set up an environmental leading group at school for active participation in the school’s environmental management.

Ｉ．Green School Development 2000–2003

1. Overall Situation
Between 2000 and 2003, altogether 284 schools were officially declared to be advanced Green Schools, 177 schools received Green School Gardening Awards, 23 institutions were declared advanced organising institutions, and 76 individuals were specially awarded. According to 2002 statistics, altogether more than 6000 schools took part in the nationwide Green School programme, this number having recently risen to over 13000. The scope of the second round of commendations was broadened not only including primary and middle schools as in the first round, but also kindergartens, secondary vocational schools and secondary normal schools. In 2002, the Ministry of Education promptly moved to carry out Premier ZHU Rongji’s directives for strengthening environmental education, and with Premier WEN Jiabao again submitting important comments on environmental education in 2003, this field has received increasing attention in China, which is encouraging on the one hand, but on the other hand also places higher demands on Green Schools. In China with its vast environment, taking the protection of the environment seriously is a sign for the development of health conditions as well as cultural advances, and it is moreover the responsibility of the whole of mankind. Anybody receiving modern education should be provided with the consciousness of one’s own responsibility as well as the basic capacities for participation in environmental protection. China faces an education reform, which will improve the comprehensiveness and quality of education for those receiving it, which also means attaching greater importance to environmental education. Green School activities are exactly suited for this kind of education, pushing forward environmental education development from multiple angles, such as education reform, implementation activities and school management. They are activities of profound significance, immeasurable vitality and abundant creativity.

Starting in 1996, the ‘National Environmental Education and Communication Action Programme’ put forward the launch of Green School establishment, and especially SEPA’s and the Ministry of Education’s joint appraisal of nationwide Green Schools as advanced schools in 2000 was followed by rapid large-scale development of schools who volunteered to take part in the Green School programme. With the entire nation’s environmental awareness rising remarkably, environmental protection is now regarded an important factor for improving quality of life as well as safeguarding physical health and safety. In the schools, greater attention is now paid to carrying out environmental education, and respective contents have been broadened, which places new demands on schools. Moreover, education is to reach a new quality so as to supply the most favourable conditions for conducting environmental education. But how shall environmental education be integrated into quality education, or to put it in other words, how can the goals of quality education be reflected by environmental education? Green School establishment opens up ways to tackle this new task, as well as to improve management standards and establish a modern image. In the wake of deepening knowledge in environmental education and for a progressive understanding of Green School activities, an increasing number of schools on their own initiative start to demand Green School establishment. Between 2002 and summer 2003, in a third and fourth round again a great number of provincial and city-level Green Schools were named and commended.

2. Effects and Results
In the recent phase of the Green School development process, the following phenomena have generally emerged:

(1) Green School establishment has received attention and support from all strata of society. Not only have EPBs in close cooperation with education departments held meetings, issued papers, done research and assigned relevant work. Entities in many places, such as the propaganda departments, culture departments, science associations, women’s federations and communist youth leagues have also actively participated and enthusiastically supported Green School activities. Especially with regard to building eco-provinces and setting up districts with environmentally sound model cities, local party committees and government departments have paid great attention and offered support to environmental education work and Green School establishment.

(2) Deepening environmental education know-how through Green School activities. Many schools have come to understand the ideas behind and contents of Green School activities during the establishment process:
　 - Understanding that Green Schools are not merely about making the school yard greener and more beautiful, and it is also not only about education of environmental know-how, but it is rather mainly meant to foster students’ environmental awareness and conduct, and through certain activity patterns to guide teachers and students to participate in the environmental protection and sustainable development efforts of the whole of society.
　- Regardless of their circumstances, any school can participate in these activities with the goal of pushing ahead environmental education, and experiencing for themselves a path of continuous improvement. The programme encourages measures to be taken suited to local conditions, avoiding participants to lose contact to reality and blindly imitate the examples of others.
　- All teachers, students and staff should be involved in Green School activities, together enhancing environmental protection awareness and capabilities. Students should be given the chance to take over hosting activities as much as possible. The programme should not be led by a minority of hand-picked teachers and students only.
　- The activities should have good organisation, objectives, and a plan; they should be summed up, recorded, and geared to long-term perseverance.
　- Green School activities may be fused together with studies, life, other activities and management at the school, thereby unfolding their cultural, progressive and dynamic features.

(3) Green School activities in various locations have covered abundant contents and achieved tangible results:
　- Many schools have linked their environmental education contents to Green School demands, organising students’ participation in environmental protection activities developed by society as well as worked out by themselves. These activities raised students’ environmental awareness, broadened their horizons, fostered a sense of responsibility and trained participation skills. Simultaneously, the activities took environmental education beyond the schools, into families, communities, society, and even as far as abroad.
　Examples can be found in Gansu Province where an activity titled ‘Primary and Middle School Students throughout the Province Guard the Environment Week’ was initiated. During this event, a grand ceremony of primary and middle school students pledging to help protect the environment, plus altogether more than 450 activities were staged.
Hegang City in Heilongjiang Province in regular intervals organises the students of all grades to visit and look into the workings of cement plants, coal combustion plants, garbage disposal plants, and health conditions in residential districts, afterwards compiling findings reports. Environment education effects are thus strengthened through practical activities within society.
　Guanghua Primary School in Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province engaged environmental experts to act as instructors outside school, regularly conducting environmental lectures and reports on special environmental education topics, guiding households to green consumption patterns by offering them environmental knowledge, and all in all to raise environmental awareness of students and parents alike.

　- Development of environmental education exchange and training. Faced with high teaching demands in environmental education, with the question of how to develop Green School activities effectively, with today’s markedly raised common environmental awareness of the public, and with the fact that some students’ environmental know-how is by no means inferior to that of their teachers, many teachers feel under considerable pressure. Thus providing training and opportunities for the exchange of teachers is absolutely necessary and extremely useful.
　Many schools have eagerly sent their teachers to participate in such training, for example: between July 2002 and July 2003, Jiangsu Province hosted environmental education and Green School workshops, which trained altogether 410 head-masters, leading teachers and staff responsible for Green Schools at EPBs and education departments. The contents of these workshops included: basic principles of sustainable development, ‘Green School Guide’, new curricula and environmental education, ‘Special Topics and Outline of Environmental Education at Primary and Middle Schools’, inspecting nationwide Green Schools and forums for exchange.
　In Chongqing, in one year more than 100 teachers and concerned personnel participated either in Green School study and discussion classes held in the city itself, or in environmental education training outside.
　In Shaanxi Province, more than 700 people have taken part in such trainings since the second half of 2002.

　- Active development of scientific research on environmental education and Green Schools. Many institutions, schools and teachers engaged in teaching as well as research have actively researched the opportunities of environmental education dispersion, development of research courses, education on special topics and practical activities, plus they have compiled some excellent teaching materials, lessons plans and papers. Sessions have been organised during which participants were able to exchange experiences, inspect each other and learn from others’ work. Some teachers have even researched and written articles on environmental education objectives, contents and methods.
　As an example, the city of Shanghai built environmental education research courses into its second stage curriculum reform for primary and middle schools. Students are encouraged to tackle independently and on their own initiative certain questions for study or discussion, projects on special topics, or the like, while consulting and following the usual methodology and regular patterns of scientific research. The aim is to conduct thoroughly investigated open studies under the teacher’s guidance and help, but on the student’s own account. These studies in turn serve as media for communicating the significance of environmental education in primary and middle schools at the time, and they have been widely welcomed by schools and students alike.
Zhejiang Province – with the education department as the main body and under strong support by the EPB – has drawn up and published environmental education teaching materials and lesson plans. Standards for teacher trainings were installed. The quality of environmental education is already on the same level as Zhejiang’s cultural education.

In Shandong Province – hosted by Shanshi Attached Primary School and Huantai Experimental Primary School – an ‘Environmental Education Know-How Reader’ (for primary and middle schools) was drawn up to be used throughout the whole province. This textbook combines basic environmental protection knowledge with the actual situation in Shandong, giving prominence to local characteristics.

Shuigang Senior Middle School in Liupanshui City, Guizhou Province for the sake of strengthening the permeation of school subjects with environmental education have formed comprehensive environmental education research groups, composed of members of different disciplines such as geography, biology, chemistry and physics. These groups collectively probe into the contents, shape and methods of how to integrate environmental education with school subjects, and giving guidance to teachers.

In Guangzhou problem-oriented research like ‘Green School Development Tactics and Research on Operation Patterns’ or ‘Experiments for Establishing School Curricula for Senior Middle School Environmental Education Elective Courses’ (developed in cooperation with the Guangzhou Experimental Primary School) has been conducted. At the International Environmental Education Forum convened in 2002, Guangzhou submitted more than 100 papers, and in 2003, when Guangzhou convened its own Environmental Education Forum, many hundreds of papers were handed in.

　 - Within the framework of Green School establishment, schools in some regions have linked up for exchange on how to protect nice gardens, thereby providing a broader space for environmental education and Green Schools.
　As an example, Zhejiang and Sichuan Provinces have each chosen four schools to build up ties among them. Moreover, some schools from the region along the Yangtze River were chosen to develop Green School activities with the focus on protecting the Yangtze’s ecological environment.
　Shenzhen City and Qinghai Province have joint up to establish mutual exchange and cooperation.
　Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has developed Green School activities among schools in the region of the Yellow River basin.

　 - For many Schools, the Green School programme represented an opportunity to raise their standards and improve their images. Some school even won awards, and were able to raise confidence and enthusiasm.
　Xiantao Primary School is a village school in Yubei District, Chongqing Municipality. The school was not run very well, and never had a chance to gain any awards. In 1999, the school lay down the target of becoming a Green School, and in 2002, it won the Earth Prize, the first prize at the 17th National Teenager S & T Innovation Contest, as well as the ‘For the Love of Science 10 National Good Deeds’ Award. Xiantao Primary School

　– with its objective of establishing a Green School as a lever – took a leap in Green School construction and comprehensive quality cultivation of students.
Xiaoyou Primary School in Xicheng District, Beijing too has through the launch of Green School activities transformed from a school that was not really noticeable to a very special, dynamic school.

　- Participation in national and international environmental protection projects and exchange activities enriches the school’s environmental education portfolio. Teachers and students get a more profound understanding of environmental problems, and their capabilities are strengthened. These activities can moreover help the outside world to acquire an initial understanding of environmental education in China.
　As an example, the ‘Shanghai Youth Association of Environmental Science Lovers’ organised at every school separate counsels for the administration of Suzhou Creek – Shanghai’s main waterway –, including exchange through power point presentations, and even an award programme.
　South-West Normal University’s Attached Middle School in Chongqing took part in Sweden’s ‘Environmental Junior Doctor Project’, in which students and teachers are given the chance to get in touch with different modes of thinking, master useful observation and operation methods, and enhance practical, hands on, analytical and even English language exchange skills.
　Jilin Province utilises the fund for the ‘Tumen River Strategic Action Plan – Awareness Raising Project’ to launch Green School activities. Jilin has enthusiastically introduced the results and experiences of its province-wide Green School activities to countries like Russia, Mongolia, Korea, etc. for those nations to be used as reference for their own projects.

(4) Summarised below is the work that EPBs and education departments have jointly done in the field of Green School development since 2002:
　- EPBs and education departments throughout the country have together named and appraised local Green Schools, from which then nominee schools for the second round of national appraisals were recommended.
　- Commendation leading group bureaus organise the arrangement and evaluation of recommended material, plus dispatching staff to carry out selective examinations in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Shanxi.
　- In April 2002 and then again in Sept. 2003, two Green School Working Conferences were held, at which the respective officers of the EPBs and education departments took part. At the conferences, the state of activity development and existing problems were reported, plus a work plan was set up. There was moreover ample exchange between participants from different locations.
　- The CEEC compiled a ‘Guide for Green School Activities’, which offers guidance and help for Green School establishment, and which was widely welcomed.
　- The CEEC as well as its local counterparts together with education departments, institutions of higher learning, respective institutions abroad, etc. organised all kinds of training, exchange, forums and exhibitions. These activities gave students the chance to participate, and head-masters, teachers and respective staff opportunities for study and exchange: Workshops for the Heads of the Green School Administration, Sino-German Teacher Training Cooperation Series, China Youth Environmental Protection Week Communication Forum, Environmental Drawing Contest for Chinese Children and Teenagers, National Green School Environmental Education Multi-Media Lesson Contest, China Environmental Education Study Trip to Germany, Environmental Education Group from China Mainland Visiting Taiwan.
　- EPBs throughout China have set up a large number of environmental education bases, where students can practically experience nature and understand reality. This is supposed to spark off a sense of responsibility for protecting the environment, which is difficult to achieve in schools and during lessons. These facilities thus have the potential to advance energetically the concerted development of environmental education in schools and Green School activities.
　- In Sino-Swedish cooperation, the ‘Environmental Junior Master Project’ was carried out, at which 104 first grade senior middle school students from 16 Advanced Green Schools participated. It was the goal to progress and expand the project further, and to strive to organise a large-scale ‘Environmental Junior Master Exchange Meeting’ in 2008, where environmental know-how and the concept of the Green Olympics will be propagated.
　Another project was the Sino-German Cooperation Green School ‘School Yard Environmental Management’. The first lot of participating schools were 12 primary and middle schools from Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong Provinces. The project mainly focuses on issues such as saving energy and lowering consummation, reducing emissions and ecological construction, as well as improving the schools management standards.
　- EPBs organised head-masters, teachers and respective staff to observe and study foreign environmental education achievements. Participants generally reported to having gathered deep impressions and acquired new input in terms of concepts and forms of environmental education.

II. Issues That Need Special Attention

In the process of Green School establishment, some problem areas appeared that were unfavourable to the development of activities. They occur regularly and should be solved and constantly improved. The main problems are:
　- Some regional education departments do not show sufficient interest, and thus do not grasp the genuine intention of Green Schools. They do not select schools for recommendation according to Green School requirements, but still consider ordinary ‘good school’ criteria, overall impressions, even going so far as to making allowances for maintaining an equilibrium.
　- At some regional EPBs there also exist problems in terms of knowledge being insufficient for the position, work not being taken seriously enough and not going deep enough into the subject, even to the extent of phenomena like individual fraud and deception.
　- Part of the schools have a one-sided understanding of ‘Green Schools’ meaning building gardens, or they are falling short of paying attention to developing a concept for their actions and the necessary participation skills. Some schools’ management is not up to standard. Some have only a minority formally participating for seeking honours.
　- Insufficient guidance, communication, training, resources or research.