April 9 marks the opening of our new campus as well as the official recognition of our move and development towards a full cross curricular, sustainable curriculum. This means teaching all subjects with sustainability at the core, topic based learning that infuses lifelong skills to create lifelong environmentally conscious people.
These children are our future, they will make Sri Lanka and our world a healthier and a better place for all. We are not only talking about teaching students about the environment but about creating sustainable humans who have the qualities and strength to make a better change for the future world. To appreciate and have an awareness for the environment and community around them.
The students and teachers have fully embraced this vision for a holistic sustainable curriculum and taken ownership of it in their teaching and learning.
Students are already making a change, finding and emailing existing projects in Sri Lanka and finding out how they can be involved. By offering an integrated curriculum with our TGS ethos, we offer a learning environment that encourages, awareness, curiosity, empathy, love, passion and tolerance and much more.
We will create people that appreciate and accept others as equals and respect their environment and the community around them. This cross curricular way of teaching equips students for a successful life and is the most powerful form of education.
We are in the process of becoming recognised as Sri Lanka’s first Eco School. This is a global movement run by the Foundation for Environmental Education. Currently there are 68 countries registered, teaching 19.5 million students across the globe and we will be the first school in Sri Lanka to be registered as an eco school. There are seven steps we must follow in which to do this and we have already completed four of these.
Having reached out to our experts in this field, we have been overwhelmed by their interest and support. Also by the interest coming from non-experts, enthusiasts who wish to support us, we can offer them a platform and a voice in their wish for change. For years TGS has been proactive, cleaning beaches, recycling, growing, and they are just a few of our environmentally friendly practices.
Today we are launching a more dedicated mission by becoming the first school in Sri Lanka to qualify as an eco school, addressing our sustainability with the right people on board to guide and inspire us, to achieve and deliver what an eco school promises its community and its country. To bring awareness and to help with the rain forests , our wild life, our water issues , cultivating our food, cultural and religious issues regarding tolerance and equality are but just a few of our obligations as an eco school.
We know that we will face challenges in growing our vision to teach not only our students but the wider community and young people of Sri Lanka. We face these challenges as a strong community with strength and passion as we know that this is the only way forward for our young people to have a healthy planet and future for themselves, and for the next generation. This past year has highlighted the need for this in movement education and change that must start now. We are already seeing the change in our students here, however, we have a long road ahead of us and this is only the beginning. - TGS