Eco Schools for a Sustainable Future By Luke Santamaria

Let us imagine! Imagine the future of education. Imagine schools which have facilities that use solar energy and wind energy, recycle rainwater, and have other environmentally friendly facilities. Imagine schools that teach environmental education to the students in order for them to live an environment friendly lifestyle. Imagine schools that involve the community in maintaining and protecting the environmental resources of each region through environmentally sound businesses, trade, programs and policies. In fact these schools are already sprouting up all over the world. These are mostly called Eco Schools.

In Japan, the Ministry of Education Science Culture and Sports in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment have begun the Eco School Pilot Project Program in 1997. Currently there are around 600 eco schools in Japan. Public schools are renovated and outfitted with environmentally friendly technology and the curriculum and other school activities are modified to teach children to about the nature in order for them to develop environmentally friendly lifestyles and habits with the ultimate goal to influence the students' respective households. Despite many problems concerning costs, division of responsibilities and the response of teachers and parents; the project is fairly successful. I have one more thing in mind to make the schools more beneficial to the community. What follows is what I invite you to imagine with me.

I was a special education teacher in the Philippines for three years. Teaching children with special needs made me realize a few things. In the Philippines, the foremost priority of education is to have a college degree in order to be able to work locally or abroad. However, many children with special needs cannot achieve this and barely reach high school level because they can barely read and write well. So most children with special needs, not being able to have a steady job end up staying at home and become dependent on their parents which ultimately have an ill effect society.

I came to Japan to study eco schools with the goal of establishing an eco school in the Philippines. As I continue my research I have discovered many possibilities regarding the eco school project. Let me name three of them for now. These three are eco schools as (1) alternative energy sources for the neighborhood, (2) vocational training center for farming and livestock, and (3) a new form of vocational education for people with disabilities.

Continue to imagine the Eco School building in your minds. A typical eco school has solar panels which gather energy from the sun and utilize them for the use of the school. Other eco schools also use wind energy to supplement energy use. Now what if Japan's brilliant minds can develop a technology that can store energy gathered from wind and solar energy sources. Then the Eco School which has these facilities can be tapped by neighboring households as alternative to regular nuclear powered or gas powered energy. With over 600 eco schools in Japan, each eco school will function as an energy distribution center with no threat of a meltdown especially on days when the school facilities are not used such as summer time when solar energy can be gathered in great amounts. This is a great alternative to the unstable and dangerous nuclear energy which Japan is relying on for now. While Japan continues to shift towards alternative forms of environmentally friendly energy production, Eco Schools will be able to supplement the lack of energy to the neighboring households.

Continue to imagine an eco school campus with small patches for vegetables and fruit bearing trees. And along with this, add a small pasture where students can help raise livestock such as sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. Students will be able to help the community in farming and raising livestock while being trained in these occupations. In a world where agricultural productions are decreasing most especially in first world countries, thus a country able to generate its own food to feed its population will be self-sustaining. Children will become aware that not everything can be relied on technology and that actual agricultural and livestock products can be a fruitful vocation. With more than 600 eco schools in Japan having such farming and livestock facilities and educational programs, the school will be a center for agricultural trade. Community members who are skilled in such a vocation can help as teachers in teaching the students about this vocation or as assistants in maintaining the facilities and taking care of the animals. An eco school will support the farmer's market concept by selling its fresh produce to the local community. Most foods will no longer be transported from faraway regions or imported from abroad. Even an eco school in an urban area can become a small food source within a neighborhood. And if many eco schools in a city can do the same, think of the possibilities of self-sustenance.

And finally, imagine my goal. Imagine a school with a special education class that not only teaches the basic academics to children with special needs but trains them to farm and raise livestock. Ultimately, most children with special needs will not be able to enter a regular corporation and their able colleagues will go on to such jobs. However, these children will be taught to continue the farming and livestock vocation which are available in eco schools. They will be employed by the eco schools to maintain the small farms and pastures within the campus and help train future children as part of the environmental education curriculum. Children with special needs then will be able to have their own job while supporting the environment and nurturing the future generations. This is a much better vision compared to them finishing their schooling but becoming dependent members of society who just stay at home or are sent to nursing homes.

Let's go back to reality. There is an energy crisis, and with the recent disasters, people are giving up on the idea of nuclear power generation. There is also food shortage brought by increasing population, the preference for sophisticated non-agricultural jobs, and as well as the effects of global warming and other disasters affecting food producing regions. And to top that, even if the population of children is decreasing the population of children with special needs is a stable number. A country such as Japan is encountering these same problems. Maybe with the exception of a decreasing population of children, progressive countries such as the Philippines are encountering such problems. With my research and proposed ideas, Japan can fully develop the eco school project and finally reach the point where most disadvantages of the Eco School such as costs of the facilities and disagreements in methods and policies. Japan then, with a well tested eco school project, can export the concept of Eco Schools around the world, of course with me preferring that South East Asian countries which mostly receive project support from Japan be a priority.

South East Asia is primarily tropical so solar energy and wind energy sources are abundant all year long. Plus, the region is mostly known for its agriculture. The regions industrialization stage will be of help as it provides products for the eco school facilities which lead to an increase in employment and trading. Also there is an abundance of raw materials such as silicon for solar panels which are found among beaches. With Japan opening the trade for materials and resource for eco schools while cooperating with each country's governments, the number of eco schools in the South East Asia will increase and following as what we have imagined, each country will become self-sufficient and hopefully, with good governance become economically stable. All this is of thanks to Japan who started a kind of eco school system which combines environmentally efficient facilities and environmentally sustainable programs compared to other environmental school concepts.

So can you imagine how the future would be with the number of such Eco Schools increasing around the world?

I also realized that eco schools can be a very effective evacuation center in times of disasters. But that's for me to tell you at another opportunity.

Graduate Student
Educational Administration Laboratory
Comparative Educational Policies Division
Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University