Bulaksumur - Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) once again initiates green school program for international standard high schools (RSBI) in the province of Yogyakarta Special Region. The training activities were attended by 30 teachers representative from RSBI high schools, including SMAN 1 Yogyakarta, SMAN 2 Yogyakarta, SMAN 3 Yogyakarta, SMAN 8 Yogyakarta, SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Yogyakarta, SMA Muhammadiyah 2, SMAN 1 Bantul, SMAN 1, SMAN 1 Wonosari, SMAN 2 Wates, Kalasan SMAN 1, SMAN 1 Sleman, SMA BOPKRI I Yogyakarta, SMA Stella Duce I Yogyakarta, and SMA Kolese De Britto, Yogyakarta. Previously, similar events have also been conducted by UGM for the RSBI vocational school (SMK).
The initiator of the green school program, Prof. Dr. Ir. Widyastuti, M.Sc., conveys that the green schools training for the secondary schools in Yogyakarta is in order to provide reinforcement of environmental values to students through the learning process. According to the Professor, a green school environmental management can be designed as a means to foster and develop knowledge, values, attitudes, behaviors, and insights as well as environmental awareness of students. "This is what encourages a green school model," said Widyastuti in the training opening ceremony speech at the LPPM room, UGM Central building on Wednesday (1/12).
She added that the success of the green schools development is largely determined by the participation of the school community, especially students and teachers. "Students are an important part in every process of green schools, both in the classroom learning process and in extracurricular activities," she said.
In the three-day training, teachers will be given the material enrichment about the contemporary condition of Indonesia and the world environmental regulation, green school design, and innovative learning that fosters environmental awareness. In addition there were also training on tree cultivation techniques, carbon uptake estimation techniques, biodiversity, and green schools assessment.
Executive coordinator, Priyono Suryanto, S. Hut., MP, said with the presence of green schools it is expected that later in each school the level of school environment ability to absorb carbon dioxide gas can be measured. "At least, we are able to find out the level of carbon uptake in each school," he said.
UGM Faculty of Forestry Urban forestry experts, Mukhlison, S. Hut., said that green schools program strongly supports the efforts of global climate change mitigation programs through the planting of trees outside the forest areas. Forestry development is not quite sufficient through the reforestation and tree planting activities in forest areas, but also has to be outside the forest also. "One of them is in the school environment," he added.
The success of the green schools program, according to Mukhlison, are physically marked by the establishment of environmentally friendly schools, tree planting activities, waste management, and various school facilities in concern of the environment. While the nonphysical marked by the presence of learning innovations curriculum that deliver the messages of environmental care awareness.
Drs. Budi Setiawan, Biology Teachers of SMAN 3 Yogyakarta who participated in this training, admitted that it is not easy to accustom the students to care about the condition of the school environment, especially for students who had been living and live in urban areas. "They even could not identify and recognize of banana crop," said Budi exemplifies. Even so, to change the behavior of students to care about the environment is the task of the teachers at school.
He mentioned that every day SMAN 3 produced at least about a quintal of garbage. However, not all of it is disposed. The waste has been processed to produce something useful. Assisted by six employees, the processed garbage is used as fertilizer and other useful items. "The waste processing activities is sometimes used as a source of the students work to join educational contest, a great deal of them win," he said.