Green School Bali Organizes Village Clean-up with Local Schools for Green Apple Day of Service, Saturday 29 September from 10:00 AM-12:00 PM

Green School Bali, named earlier this year as “2012 Greenest School on Earth” by the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council, will participate in the first ever Green Apple Day of Service to be held on September 29, 2012.

Bali (I-Newswire) September 24, 2012 - Green School Bali, named earlier this year as “2012 Greenest School on Earth” by the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council, will participate in the first ever Green Apple Day of Service to be held on September 29, 2012. Also sponsored by the Center for Green Schools, the goal of the event is to support healthy and sustainable schools. Schools from around the world have been invited to initiate and take part in projects.

Students, teachers and parents from Green School will join up with children from two local schools that have already collaborated on many projects with Green School to arrange for a clean-up of the local area from 10:00 AM- 12:00 PM. Improper waste disposal is a major issue in Bali, and piles of garbage that can be found on beaches and in rice fields in many areas threaten the island’s image as a tourist mecca. Students will divide into small teams, each armed with baskets, and the groups will sweep in from the main roads that border the campus to the east and the west, picking up all rubbish they find along the way. The groups will come together and meet on the signature covered bamboo bridge that links both sides of the campus for a recycling party, complete with refreshments and traditional music.

Chris Thompson, Green School Bali’s Managing Director, noted that “Every day here at Green School is a Green Apple Day of Service, given the strong focus on environmentally sustainable practices that marks literally everything we do. But we are excited to join with other schools around the world, and we’re especially excited to have the chance to work alongside the young people from the local community who will grow up to become Bali’s Green Leaders of the future.”

Green School boasts one of the most beautiful campuses imaginable, with extraordinary bamboo structures rising out of the jungle, surrounded by lush organic gardens and bisected by the Ayung River. Green School serves an international population of 260 students from 40 countries in Pre-K through Grade 12 in the 2011-2012 school year, with boarding available for Grades 6 and up. The school also supports a scholarship program for local Balinese children.

Students learn traditional subjects including math, science, literacy, and computers, but classroom academics at Green School come wrapped in rich layers of experiential and environmental learning, inspiring a strong sense of connection to and responsibility for the natural world while at the same time delivering core skills and content. As much as possible, Green School students learn through the many hands-on, environmental projects taking place around the campus.

Green School has been designed and built to have as small an impact as possible on the environment. No earth was moved or trees cut down during the construction process. Bamboo is the primary structural material, but other local, natural, and renewable elements are also employed, including alang-alang thatch, volcanic stone, rammed earth, and traditional Balinese mud wall. Open air structures allow for natural light and ventilation, and aided by ceiling fans stay cool even during the hottest days in the jungle. Green School grows much of the food it consumes, including organic rice, fruit, and vegetables through a bio-intensive gardening system. The school also is home to a number of environmental initiatives, including a breeding project in association with the Begawan Foundation for several endangered bird species, highlighted by the beautiful and nearly extinct in the wild Bali Starling, in specially built aviaries.

With generous financial and technical support from Akuo Energy and the Akuo Foundation, Green School is in the process of getting off the grid through renewable energy sources. By using their expertise in developing eco-minded photovoltaic schemes, Akuo’s engineers collaborated with members of the Green School community to conceive a customized solar project focused both on the electrical design of the installations and the innovative design of the photovoltaic modules. Akuo is also assisting Green School in implementing a Gravitational Water Vortex, a low-impact micro-hydro power project that will create electricity from the Ayung River flowing through the campus.