•  rio de janeiro
• Wednesday, December 29, 2010
• Inter Press Service

Living sustainably can be learned. That is the idea championed by two schools in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, where students are learning to become environmental citizens of the new millennium.

At the João XXIII School, it was the H1N1 flu alarm that prompted a change. To prevent the spread of the disease, last year the school administration replaced the usual drinking fountains with water coolers that use disposable cups. But some of the students began to play with the plastic cups instead of using them for drinking. 'It was a waste,' Gabriela Borges, 15, president of the João XXIII Student Union, told Tierramérica.

So the students suggested replacing the disposable cups, and now each student and staff member has his or her own plastic bottle -- to be reused indefinitely. Those 1,500 bottles, distributed free of charge, reduced plastic cup use from 3,500 to 250 per day.

Founded in 1964, with 915 students and run by a foundation established by parents, João XXIII intends to invest more in the project 'O Mundo Passado a Limpo' (The Past World Made Clean). 'We want our students to be concerned about people and about the environment in which they live. That is, what is happening here where they are, not just in the forests,' assistant principal Maria Tereza Coelho explained to Tierramérica.

The school already had a vegetable garden and systems to process compost (organic materials) and to separate recyclable materials from trash. In 2009, a study at the school, 'Biodiversity: Know It to Preserve It,' about identifying the native and exotic species found in the school's green area, won the attention of biologist Camila Rezendo Carneiro and agricultural engineer Sérgio Luiz de Carvalho Leite, professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

The school and the university joined efforts, and through an extension course Carneiro and Leite are guiding the students in their analysis of species. They will put together a bio-map and establish a nature path on the school grounds. In 2011 they will construct a model of a city, which will be assessed based on environmental sustainability, ethics and cooperation, said geography teacher Arturo Bergelt.

The children will elect their 'mini-mayors,' and will have to make decisions about such things as budget priorities. The city is being planned with the help of an architect (the mother of a student), and will be built using recycled materials. In parallel, a science teacher will teach the students to build water heaters from plastic barrels. They will also have an 'ecological' classroom that will function using sustainable practices.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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