From The Classroom To The Great Outdoors

It is hard to believe that a secondary school can produce close to 100kg of vegetables in an urban jungle like Singapore every few months. With four different kinds of farms located in different parts of the campus, Commonwealth Secondary School (CWSS) students are no strangers to urban farming.

With its very own farm-to-table programme, eco curriculum, and tree planting initiative, CWSS has submitted a Green Nation Pledge to cement its commitment to nurturing environmental stewards through ‘4C’s — by making sustainability a key theme on the Campus, infusing environmental education into the Curriculum, building up a school Culture, and connecting with the Community beyond the school.

CWSS students taking care of the plants at the indoor corridor farm in one of the school blocks.

Jacob Tan, Senior Teacher (Biology) and Teacher-in-charge of the Eco Club at CWSS, is one of the staff leading sustainability efforts within the school. Even though there are only 43 students in the Eco Club, almost everyone in the school is involved in a green activity one way or another.

Jacob said: “We see ourselves as a microcosm of Singapore, where we allow our students to experience how national goals such as the City in Nature vision, OneMillionTrees movement, 30 by 30, might look like within a school.”

CWSS hopes to plant 100 trees, some of which are endangered species, on the school campus within the next 10 years.

Piloting The Way Forward With Their Very Own Green Plan

As one of the four pilot schools under the Ministry of Education’s Eco Stewardship Programme, CWSS has a strong foundation in eco-friendly projects. Since the start of the programme in 2021, the school has expanded the number of sustainability initiatives to involve more students and staff.

Coming up with its very own Green Plan, CWSS has various activities and programmes anchored on the ‘4C’s. Jacob shared that having the school’s own green plan will allow staff and students to be aware of how various programmes and infrastructure improvements made in the school are part of a bigger picture to create positive momentum to be in sync towards environmental stewardship.

The school has an indoor vertical farm, an outdoor vertical farm, an outdoor traditional farm, and an indoor corridor farm. This allows students to have the chance to experience farming first-hand and learn about the importance of food security. The harvest will be used in Food and Consumer Education classes, where students learn to cook and savour the fruits of their labour. Excess produce is given to canteen stall operators.

In a bid for circularity, CWSS also has two food digesters in its canteen, where food waste from stallowners would be converted into compost for farming.

Produce from the different farms in the school is used during Food and Consumer Education classes and also given to canteen stall operators. The school is also just beginning to try out food digesters to get compost from food waste.

Environmental Education For A School In Nature

To make learning more authentic and engaging, teachers intentionally incorporate environmental elements associated with their subjects into their classes. For example, Geography teachers would bring students to the Rainforest Garden in the school to do fieldwork investigation, and learn about vertical forest structure, rainfall, sunlight, and even types of leaves. Farming also teaches students some basic Biology concepts.

CWSS also strives to transform the campus into a ‘School in Nature’, developing more eco-habitats to serve as living classrooms for students. The school plans to plant 100 more trees and shrubs on the campus over the next 10 years, in a bid to enrich the school’s biodiversity. During this period, students will also be involved in propagating endangered forest tree species in the school’s plant nursery to plant within the campus, along Nature Ways, and in Nature Parks and Nature Reserves.

The school also has an area called the “Rainforest” — a living classroom to teach students about Geography. The students take part in fieldwork investigations to complete their assignments and learn more about nature.

Being stewards of the environment also means being part of the community and moving the community in the right direction. This is why CWSS also organises learning journeys for other schools such as Raffles Institution, River Valley High School, Bukit Batok Secondary School, and student-teachers from the National Institute of Education, sharing their knowledge and action plans for a better future together.

Eco Club students gave a tour of the school’s green programmes to student-teachers from NIE.

Saying no to single-use plastics

In addition to all the initiatives and efforts mentioned, CWSS also has a strong disposable-lite culture. This started as early as 2017 when over 100 teaching and non-teaching staff went for a coastal clean-up at Tanah Merah Beach. The experience made staff realise and understand the issue of plastic pollution.

In 2018, the school encouraged its canteen operators not to use plastic straws, cups, lids, stirrers, plastic, and styrofoam takeaway containers. One year later, the school’s canteen stopped selling bottled drinking water completely.

Jacob said: “After we returned from Circuit Breaker, we issued every student a reusable lunch box and encouraged the canteen and cafe not to issue any disposables to students ordering takeaways. During our staff events that have buffets, around 50% of the teachers also brought their own reusable containers and utensils instead of using the single-use disposables provided by the caterer. We hope to increase the adoption rate of using reusable containers in the school.”

Champions of Today, Leaders of Tomorrow

Because of the efforts that have been put in by CWSS to protect the environment, the school has received many awards, such as winning International Green Flag Award from the World

Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for a second time and the top award in Schools Green Award 2021. They also received the President’s Award for the Environment (PAE) way back in 2009 for their dedication to environmental education and efforts to groom crusaders for the green cause.

Gaining recognition is just a byproduct of the work being done because caring for the environment is an ongoing mission.

As Jacob puts it aptly: “In schools, we are molding the future of our nation. We see our students as ‘Champions of Today, Leaders of Tomorrow’ (our school’s mission). We hope to provide them with an environment that nurtures a love for the environment. While others wait for curriculum changes to include a sustainability theme, we went ahead to develop eco-habitats in the school to bring nature closer to us, and we see environmental education, not as a subject to teach but as a lifestyle that we hope staff and students will adopt.”

Inspired by Commonwealth Secondary School’s efforts to be sustainable? Submit your own pledge now at http://go.gov.sg/greennationpledge and tell us what you will do for the environment. Start now, do more, and know that it’s never too late to be a green warrior.

#ForwardSG #SGGreenPlan #GreenNationPledgeSG