[ Pong Tzoh Elementary School ] A nature-blessed grade school
 

By Jen Li-zhu
 

　Situated in a farming community, the school is of a typical rural school, where the campus is teeming with lush vegetation, chirping birds and insects offering a rich eco-diversity that can be likened to an open natural eco ground, which the school is able to utilize the abundance of lush green resources to showcase the school’s characteristics in anticipation of creating a quality green campus.
 

In recent yeas, the school board has been actively culminating an eco campus, with stepped up environmental education and combining the community’s collective efforts, by setting up a grand vision that would not only be poised to create a healthy, safe and bio-diverse and teaching friendly campus for all children, but also in anticipation of culminating future generations that are aware of respecting, appreciating and caring for nature and taking pride in coexisting with nature.

   
  I. The cornerstone in Pong Tzoh’s sustainable campus development plan
 
   Amid a lush green environment, the canopied campus is where Pong Tzoh teaching faculty finds their inspirations for being dedicated to an environmental education. And years of school efforts in promoting ecological education taking to smart utilization and creation of natural resources has the sole purpose of instilling a sustainable campus that can be used to culminate the children with a sustainable management concept, and be aware of conserving resources, caring for nature and being a part of the earth’conservancy. The following excerpts the efforts that Pong Tzoh Elementary School has accomplished in environmental teaching broaching from the angles of environmental culmination, environmental teaching, eco living, community outreach and related promotional activities,

 
  1. Environmental culmination
The school further expands the campus environment management toward the direction of ecology and in written teaching materials, such as the insect/butterfly attraction project that not only enhances the esthetics of the campus but instantly transforms the campus into an ecology vibrant sanctuary, containing the teaching material garden, eco garden, butterfly garden, composed area and so forth, all have been instilled under this grand concept. The biodiversity enriched eco environment has not only come to enrich children attending Pong Tzoh with fantastic learning subjects but also facilitated the teaching faculty’s teaching efforts.

2. Environmental teaching
As Pong Tzoh Elementary School continues to implement its environmental teaching activities, all made to remind the children with the concept of resource conservancy and respecting lives, such as the falling leaf teaching week, campus tree nomination exercise, the toppling of an old tree, eco trophy games, free study, campus botanical passport to name a few. Through a wide range of diverse activities and firsthand experience, the children of Pong Tzoh have been culminated with a profound sense of environmental caring and resource conservancy.

3. Eco living
An eco friendly campus living calls for energy conservation, material recycling, low pollution and frugality. Upholding a central concept of protecting the earth, the school is at the forefront of promoting an eco friendly lifestyle, campaigning to reinforce,
(1) Waste reduction, resource recycling.
(2) Energy conservation, promoting power saving, water saving, i.e. installing water saving faucets, water piggy banks, etc.
(3) Producing fallen leaf compose, wastewater recycling and reuse taking to a material recycling principle.
(4) Campaigning the reduced use of plastic bags and recycling of depleted batteries to reduce burdening earth.
(5) Advocating gentle speech and moderated movements to attain noise reduction.
(6) Instigating green consumption by trying to purchase products that bear environmental protection emblems.
(7) Supporting the Bureau of Environmental protection’s various campaigns to enforce a green living on campus.
 
 
4. Community outreach
Extending the outreach of environmental protection to communities has been an objective of our efforts. Showing the children local crops, community environment, together with community resources, such as learning the processes adopted at the dairy farm, snail ranch, banana research institute and horticultural farms run by student parents, can all become fine teaching subjects with careful planning and some smart thinking, in which the firsthand parental participation also brings the parents in sync with the school working together to excel the school’s environmental education.
   
  5. Promotional activities
To support school teaching faculty’s inducting campus environmental teaching, the school board has compiled a series of auxiliary teaching materials, including a school botany encyclopedia – the green resources, Pong Tzoh Elementary School eco classroom teaching module, eco teaching and state soil conservancy, coordinated with related teaching materials jointly compiled by school teaching faculty and school teaching Web page, to instill an enriching teaching resources at Pong Tzoh, and avail Pong Tzoh’s resources to share with like-minded school districts.
   
  II. The content of its sustainable campus reengineering project        
 
    To instill our campus with sustainability, we have scrutinized the school’s local environmental characteristics, cultural background, coordinated with the school’s existing layout criteria and conditions, in anticipation of systematically integrate school resources or revamp some of the outdated layout relying on the strength of professional know-how and technology.
    The sustainable partial campus reengineer plan proposed by the school pertains to an “Ecological cycle revamp project, which is comprised of, 1.Laying in a percolation layer; 2. Used water recycling and ecological pond reengineering; 3. Fallen leaf and kitchen compose site reengineering; 4. Teaching farms. The project is subdivided into “Water recycling” and “Material recycling”, which are inexplicably interrelated rather than two individual components, and need to be fully integrated to make up a .
  recyclable eco campus system that meets the rudimentary concept in resource conservation and resource recycling and supports creating a campus with effective utilization of water resources, coordinated with showcasing the school’s emblematic growth of the large leaf mahogany, helping to excel greater material recycling and reuse.

III. Our anticipations
     The pace for promoting environmental teaching cannot be halted. We anticipate in the future that water resources can be better utilized at Pong Tzoh Elementary School that would help to crate a finer bio habitat; natural soil water retention can be achieved through laying in a percolation layer; ground water table can be preserved, and campus fallen leaves can be reutilized to steer the students and parents with a correct concept in the recycling of all substances and to create a more ecologically friendly teaching environment. We further envision a greater purpose of promoting the ecological conservation concept to the community resolving around the school, and to share the sustainable campus management concept with peer schools, for we are fully convinced that seeds saw in earth will someday become shady tree growths.
 

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