The Green Schools in Bali, Tulum, South Africa and New Zealand are designed around sustainability and our relationships with nature. They do lots of community centered projects focused on hands-on learning, real world experiences, and skills acquisition. Learning is play-based in younger years and gets increasingly personalized so that by High School, every learner is on an individualized post-secondary path.
Through “Greenstone projects,” high school students have the opportunity to devise business plans and work with local communities to address current challenges like climate change and inequality. Some students have gotten well-deserved attention for their project pursuits. Also, Footprints are Grade 5 & 8 Capstone projects, fuelled by a student’s desire to leave behind a positive footprint for the community and the environment.
The school experience is designed to nourish young people through connection to nature – from field experience, to a green curriculum, to outdoor classrooms, and more. Students also experience SEL programming, mindfulness, yoga, and more (e.g. here)
Project-based learning is designed for students to learn with and from the community while also giving back. Examples include creating a renewable energy source, making surfboards from bottle caps collected through trash walks around the beaches, campaigning for local restaurants to stop using plastic straws and provide them with bamboo straws made at the on-campus Innovation Hub, or trying to conserve and regenerate coral reefs by re-planting them in the ocean.
Through Jalan Jalan students are learning outside of school walls on a regular basis (which increases as they get older). Place-based learning is a driver of learning and takes students outdoors and into the community.
Visit Green Schools: https://www.greenschool.org/