Sustainability
This year at WIS we began the journey of raising the profile of sustainability and the ways we as a community can embrace the changes needed to ensure our school community contributes to the wider Sustainability Development Goals for 2040. We started the process by clearly defining the term sustainability and understanding the three key pillars. Social, Environmental and Economic factors are keys to us making the necessary progress across all 17 goals. Our student body was then asked to form an action team. We currently stand at 89 active members in the Secondary SEE Change team alongside our primary “Plastic Pledge Patrol” team. Some highlights throughout the year have been the attendance of 147 students at COP 28 a moment in history that our students will no doubt remember long after they have left school. Students came away with many ideas and even represented WIS on local radio. We campaigned to create change in our cafeteria working closely with the Dubai Municipality and Slices our cafe provider. Our Year 6 realised the power of communication - by raising their concerns of over packaging by letter. The students were asked to attend an online meeting with the Municipality
and then one of our students attended the face to face event to speak about the issues he could see our school facing. Whilst the issue began as a writing a persuasive letter the students quickly realised how powerful their words and actions can be. The SEE Change team created a lesson alongside our Year 4 teachers . This lesson was delivered by the students and educated our school community on the effects of nurdle transport by ships around the world. The students then put their knowledge into action at the beach collecting nurdles. Our SEE Change team presented assemblies for Earth Week and shared our progress and visions for the year ahead. Students competed in the cluster competition to reduce single use plastic and created posters to educate the school community. We had an informative talk with Toby Gregory the founder of ‘The Plastic Pledge’ and member of the Arabian Ocean Rowing Team. Every change we make is contributing to a more sustainable WIS. It has been exciting to share with students the Ministry of Education plans for sustainability in lessons and the wider GEMS commitments to sustainability that will enhance our building.
GEMS WELLINGTON INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL 58
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