The City School Darakhshan Campus: Promoting the UN SDGs
By Viqar Shirazi, The City School Darakhshan Campus
At The City School Darakhshan Campus (TCS), we are educating our learners about the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). In the spirit of Mission 4.7, we believe educating today's youth will benefit tomorrow's generations. Earth's resources are draining, and we are already short of time. Transformative Education is a teaching tool that protects the planet and its valuable resources.
TCS is standing steadfast in communicating to students about how they can collaborate to fulfill their responsibility as citizens. In the beginning of 2022, staff, students, parents and visitors could visit our school to learn about the UN SDGs and understand their contribution towards Mother Earth.
This year, we introduced a new club, "Concerned Cityzens" which incorporates awareness campaigns on campus and in nearby communities. Over 215 students have joined, and each week, the Presidents and Secretaries of the club organize activities. Some activities include poster making relating to Conserve Energy, Save Water, Do Not Litter. Other activities emphasize crafts, such as making vertical gardens using recycled items, wall beautification, and paper bag construction. One major initiative was garbage disposal awareness, in which we put three different colour dustbins in the playground and created awareness on proper trash disposal.
We incorporate the SDGs in our English and Urdu lessons through article writing, letter writing, descriptive writing, and dialogue writing. We are also developing cross-curricular linkages with the SDGs in our Geography and Science lessons. In order to communicate the dire need for working towards SDGs, we have daily starter messages which are displayed in all classes and discussed with students.
In support of our goals, The City School is currently in the process of organizing two Problem-Based Learning (PBL) projects:
PBL 1: To reduce the impact of TCS families on Earth
We will encourage with our students and families:
To create awareness among TCS families about their environmental impact;
To collect data of different resources used by families and display the data through graphics;
To calculate, interpret, and analyse the data by involving mathematical operations;
To introduce a proper waste management system in TCS families’ houses (i.e., separating plastic waste, paper waste, and general waste);
To create a compost heap using daily organic waste for the families’ individual gardens;
To minimise the usage of water by reducing excessive wastage;
To minimise energy consumption by reducing excessive use of electricity;
To minimise fuel consumption by withdrawing from unnecessary drives;
To collaborate with NGOs like the Gul Bahar Foundation, who collect recyclable waste; and
To contribute to clean Karachi by reducing the dumping of waste of families’ houses.
PBL 2: Reducing the risk of climate change
We will encourage in our students’ actions:
To develop awareness about climate change and our responsibilities for climate action;
To run a plantation drive across the neighbourhood that will clean the air and lower the water table rise from rain in Defence Housing Authority VI;
To create a kitchen garden within school areas and help students learn to grow organic produce in their home gardens; and
To feed the hungry by giving the products grown from kitchen gardening.
Recognizing the urgency for protecting our planet, novelist Paulo Coelho writes in The Winner Stands Alone:
Save the planet? How can we be so arrogant? The planet is, was, and always will be stronger than us. We can't destroy it; if we overstep the mark, the planet will simply erase us from its surface and carry on existing. Why don't they start talking about not letting the planet destroy us?
It's high time that we understand we need Mother Earth and not vice versa. Therefore, each one of us has to contribute to making it sustainable for the existence of our future generations.