Is your school climate cool?
This story is told by the Climate Council at Nordfjord Folkehøgskule.
We recently did a Ducky Challenge. Everything started the autumn of 2017, when our school established a Climate Council, consisting of five students. Through the first semester, the Council organized weekly climate tips at the student gathering on Monday mornings. Here we talked about one specific climate topic affecting us in our everyday life, and how we can live more sustainably. We think this has played an important role in the engagement around environmental issues among the students. For example we advised them to use what we already own instead of buying new stuff, and to bring a shopping net to the store instead of buying new plastic bags every time.
Then the principal at our school introduced us to Ducky, which was something we thought sounded like a really fun and new way of encouraging the students of the school, so we started working toward getting the Ducky Challenge to Nordfjord. Some of us participated in a test challenge to see how it work. We found it super cool, and looked forward to arranging it to our fellow students.
Before the challenge started, we had several visitors talking about various climate issues. For example, we had one representative from the TAVAHA movement, and one from INFINITUM. We think this was engaging for the students, and it was a great preparation for the challenge.
The challenge started right after Christmas, and in parallel with the Ducky challenge, we arranged a vegetarian challenge. Before Christmas, we asked our students if they were interested in trying a no-meat diet for two weeks. 80 out of 140 said they were, and it led to great positivity for vegetarian food during the Ducky Challenge. 80 students could then log «vegetarian day» on the Ducky platform every day, which saved a lot of CO2 per student, and was a big win for the team.
Quick fact: a vegetarian day saves 1,06 KgCO2
During the challenge, everyone talked about environmental issues, much more than before. It generally led to more discussion and reflection upon the issue among all of the students, even those who usually would not care that much. Less food waste, less unnecessary light in rooms that were not used and fewer and shorter showers were just some of the positive outcomes. People were more busy taking care of the environment than usual. We,
the members of the Climate Council, both saw and heard a remarkable difference at the school.
During the challenge, we arranged an event where students could take their things and their clothes and swap them with others’ clothes or things. They were also able to sell some of their belongings. The leftovers were given to the «boxes for people in need». A lot of students participated. The purpose was to reduce students consumption of new clothes, and get them to make something out of their old clothes instead of just throwing them away. In this
way, many students got their wardrobe freshened up without charging the environment.
We viewed the documentary «Before the flood», by Leonardo DiCaprio, which was relevant and made people more aware of the issue that we are facing.
The Ducky Challenge went on between the different dorm floors, and the teachers at our school. Through the challenge, there were two leading floors that fought bravely for the victory.
Vesttun 1 and Midttun 1. V1 was all boys, and M1 only girls. In the bitter end M1 proved themselves the best, and won first prize.
The prize was a complete vegan ‘gourmet’ meal, cooked and served by the members of the Climate Council. The winning team also got a winner’s cup made of milk carton lids and an empty soda bottle. Additionally, we taught them how to use bee’s wax to make reusable wrappings.
The meal consisted of six vegan dishes. The first dish was baked sweet potato with vegan bacon, sour supreme, vegan «cheese» dip, mango salsa, marinated garlic, tortilla chips and guacamole.
For the second dish we had vegan enchiladas, with beans, chili, sweet potato, coriander, and champignon, with salsa and avocado/tahini dip on top. The main dish was pitas with falafel, spinach, tomato, cucumber, red onion, vegan cheese dip, hummus and sour supreme.
For dessert we served two delicious cakes and some nice cream. The first cake was a vegan chocolate cake with chili, coffee and raspberry, and the second was a vegan Oreo cake.
The winning team was really satisfied (and stuffed) after a great meal. It was a cozy evening with lots of amazing food. We think that through this meal, we showed people how tasteful and varied vegan food can be, and several of the teammates uttered that they definitely would make some of the dishes themselves later. Our school’s Ducky challenge was the most successful so far. Never had the percentage of participants been higher, and never had the savings per person been greater. We thank the Ducky team for their great support, and our school management for giving us the opportunity to get this through and give the winners a well deserved prize. And of course we thank every participant for being totally into it and going for the win. Go Ducky!
Written by the Climate Council at Nordfjord Folkehøgskule!
