Green school
April 14, 2010It is Saturday afternoon, and the school in Hamburg's popular Altona district is anything but closed for business. Students at the Allee High School are busy explaining to a group of interested visitors how their school came to win a "green school" award.
The youngest of the pupils present is ninth-grader Samet Sari. In keeping with the theme of the day, he's wearing a T-shirt with a windmill on it. It's not so much a fashion as an environmental statement - a sign of things to come.
A few weeks from now, the school will install its own windmill, which together with the photovoltaic cells already on the roof, will provide the school with clean energy. The project, in which pupils of all ages are involved, started when they submitted a plan for a mini wind turbine to a competition looking for innovative ideas for Hamburg.
And the winner is...
The Koerber Foundation organizes the competition and received more than 1,000 entries. But the foundation, which aims to try out new ideas and methods and transfer them to society, was particularly impressed by the proposal from the Allee school.
Constanze Klaus of the foundation told Deutsche Welle she welcomed the idea because "it is really supported by the pupils, is sustainable and unique in Hamburg."
The project equally appealed to Joerg Hermann from TUEV Nord, an organization responsible for technical standards. It is one of the sponsors for the wind turbine. He said the school project is a great example of how cities can make use of small wind turbines and simultaneously equip the younger generation for a cleaner future.
"The pupils learn about renewable energy forms," Hermann told Deutsche Welle. "You have to sow the seeds wherever you can if you want to reap the benefits later."
A fresh wind for integration
Samet's parents came to Germany from Albania. The other children in the group have families from India, Pakistan and Ghana. With at least half of his pupils of non-German descent, the school's principal Ulrich Mumm said he believed projects like the wind turbine initiative were an ideal way of bringing different cultures closer together.
"How can I bring young people who were born here, but have parents or grandparents from another country together and get them to play an active part in German society?" Mumm said. With environment projects, it didn't matter where the pupils come from.
"The future is the interesting thing, and it's the same for all of them," he said.
An inner-city idyll
In addition to the renewable energy projects, the school also has its own garden. It composts its own organic waste and collects rainwater for re-use. Tenth grade pupil Rashid Khan said he greatly enjoys having a slice of nature on the premises and being able to find "a nice, peaceful spot in the school surroundings."
Much of the money for these projects comes from private donations. The school has its own foundation to collect funds, and the pupils are involved in the process every step of the way.
What's more, the environment projects are also integrated into normal lessons. In physics, the pupils learn how photovoltaic systems work. In social studies, they discuss why solar cells are not found on every building, and in their German classes, they learn how to write letters appealing for donations.
Lessons for life
When they leave the school grounds in the afternoons, the pupils take what they have learned home. Michael Amo-Darko, whose parents were born in Ghana, said his environmental education is rubbing off on his whole family.
"We've changed our habits, like remembering to switch the lights off and not leaving TVs or computers on standby," Michael said.
Another pupil, Moninder Kaur, persuaded her father to buy a more expensive television set on the basis that it would save energy in the long run. She and her fellow pupils are proud of their school and of what they can achieve with their commitment to the environment.
"If we learn to do the right thing now and put it into practice and pass it on to others, we can do our little bit to save the world every day," Moninder said.
Author: Irene Quaile (tkw)
Editor: Sabina Casagrande