With Italy taking a step towards spearheading the fight against climate change by making 33 hours of environmental lessons mandatory in schools, it’s important to dwell over the role that schools play when it comes to stopping the epidemic. In line with the Italians, all schools should start to integrate environmental studies into their core curriculum to ensure that their students are well informed about the climate crisis. Alongside, schools in Bangladesh should also begin to implement rules and personal goals in order to ensure they play an active role in building a greener country. Listed below are a few ways to do so.

MAKE TREE PLANTATION NECESSARY

A Filipino law proposed earlier this year makes it necessary for students to plant at least 10 trees in order to graduate. While formalising a tradition of planting trees, the law also aims to combat climate change simultaneously. If a similar rule is implemented in Bangladeshi schools, it could lead to at least a few million trees being planted, allowing students to build a better environment for the future. Although planting trees cannot fix the damage already done to the environment, it can still go a long way.

ENCOURAGE COMPOSTING

Much of the food waste that schools produce contribute to greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide and produce harmful liquids. Instead of sending this waste to landfill, composting the organic material can be very beneficial for the environment and play a significant role during gardening. Apart from food scraps, much of the paper products that schools tend to waste can also be used to compost. Informative articles and videos can be found all over the internet to ease you into composting, making it very convenient for students to start their own composting initiatives.

BOOKS, COPIES AND OTHER MATERIALS

It is understood that a big part of helping the environment is to recycle, but a bigger advantage to recycling books is that other people are saved from the financial trouble of having to buy books for the new academic year. Very often, the new materials we buy have hundreds of unused pages left so it would be very wise to reuse those instead of buying new copies. It’s going to be a long time before schools in Bangladesh become ready to be paper-free, so until then, the best we can do is to reduce the usage of paper as much as we can. Ban single use plastic. And yes, that goes for school events too.

ENCOURAGE SCHOOL BUSES

Transportation is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, so start encouraging the teachers, support staff and your peers to start walking to school. Ask your school to provide transportation services so that large numbers of students are able to travel on buses to and from school, reducing much of their carbon footprint.

Lastly, try encouraging your school to set up an environment club that can oversee the activities of the school as a whole and take necessary action when rules regarding the environment are violated. With very little time to save the environment, we must do as much as we can as fast as we can.

Fariha enjoys binge-watching movies in the dark vicinity of her bedroom. Strike up a conversation with her at fariha.safa@gmail.com