Earth Day in Pietarsaaren lukio

Pietarsaaren lukio participated in Earth Day by small but significant eco deeds. The idea of the day was to teach ecological  thinking within the lessons and by consuming less electricity and fossil fuels. 

Ride your bike to school!

The students and teachers were asked to ride their bikes to school instead of driving their cars or getting a ride. The idea was to come to school with the person’s own energy, so in addition to biking, it was recommended to walk, rollerblade or skateboard to school. Many students and teachers took the chance as they do every school day throughout the year despite the weather.

Ecologigal topics in class

All the teachers were asked to teach ecological values in their own subjects. For instance, on an English lesson, the topic of consuming less was discussed. 

- Some of the students even made a commitment to stop buying certain products for a month, tells Teija Kauppinen, teacher of English.

Switch off the light, please!

A great idea, which the students came up with, was to study without any electricity. In a modern school, it is a little bit difficult, but at least it was partially carried out. In physics, biology and English, the teachers decided to switch off the lights on the lesson. On a chemistry lesson, the teacher only wrote with a chalk on a black board with the lights switched off. A sunny spring day made it possible.

This is about changing attitudes with small steps, says Anna-Maija Lyyra, the biology and geography teachers. - Everybody can do his share quite easily.

Marja Seppälä, the religion teacher took the students on an Apostolic walk in order to take a look at the religious places of the town. In the beginning of the lesson, they also made an experiment of surrounding a tree holding each others hands. On a philosophy lesson, Marja took the students to meet a tree and have a dialogue in a Buberian way.

Green clothing

Many students honored the theme by dressing in green. Different shades of green reminded everyone of the Earth Day and the importance and necessity to stop the climate change and to protect nature.

Meeting in Finland

In January 2016 it was time for our next meeting organized in Pietarsaari, Finland.

The meeting was held in two “waves”: The teachers arrived on Thu 14^th and left the following Monday while the second wave of students  and accompanying teachers arrived on Saturday evening leaving the following Friday. That meant that the whole group of teachers and students + all the local teachers and students (about 70) spent the greatest day outdoors in Nanoq (The arctic museum) and Merilä (the congregation camp center) also enjoying the beautiful winter landscape and outdoor activities eg. walking on the ice or in the silent forest. One aspect of sustainable development, the key issue of Pietarsaari meeting, is the cultural aspect and that was implemented in our day in the museum and in nature.

During the teachers and coordinators´ meeting they had eg. a chance to discuss the best teaching practices and ideas considering sustainable development, listen to the lectures about Finnish ECO-school in Pietarsaari and Nature school in the neighbor city, Kokkola, and of course plan the future of the whole project. As promoting good health is also an essential  part of sustainable development, the teachers were offered to try yoga and even test their limits - and sure they did: Most of the teachers were brave enough not only to sit in the hot sauna but also take a dip in the freezing ocean at Strandis.  At least the dinner in Ädelbragd in Oravainen on Sunday evening was quite an experience for our foreign teachers: the food offered in the 18^th century style and the vividly told details about the fight in Oravainen as part of the Finnish war will probably stay in their minds for a long time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first day of the students´ week was spent in Merilä and as they had arrived late the previous evening, the day was also spent to get to know each other a bit better.

There was a lot of laughter, joy and excitement (and snow fights) in the air as the students and teachers enjoyed this perfect though a bit chilly day outdoors. The weather was almost perfect the whole week: the temperatures varied between -15 to -30, but the cold was not a problem: there were hardly any complaints and most of the people were well informed and well equipped to face the chilly weather.

On different afternoons the students and teachers tried skating in the skating rink, skiing in the school park, took a Nordic walking –tour to music café After Eight and finally sledging in almost freezing temperatures. For most people all the activities were new and exciting, but there were also a few who had tried some of them earlier.

On Monday the actual work considering environmental issues and sustainable development got started. After discussing a very touching HOME-movie (students had watched it at home) and planning posters based on it, it was time to get to work with the main theme during the week and form the international groups. The work started by watching the videos made by each country trying to gather possible environmental problems and choosing one of them to be solved. The students were offered ideas how to think as creatively as possible and the model that they used to analyse the problem and the reasons behind it was called Fishbone analysis created by Japanese Kaoru Ishikawa. The aim was to create 2 different solutions to the problem: both realistic and the futuristic one, and when Thursday finally arrived, we were able to see unbelievably creative solutions and lively presentations, because also the form of the presentation was open.

In addition to this project lasting the whole week the students´ knowledge about the environment and the importance of nature preservation and sustainable development definitely increased when they had a chance to visit Ekorosk, an exceptional waste disposal facility in Pietarsaari. On Wednesday morning the students gave their individual, ecological promises to reduce their ecological foot print and all of them were and are to be seen by everybody else on a big blanket.

Considering the cultural aspect of sustainable development, we wanted the students to present and teach something small from their own home country: That was organized in the form of a short cultural assembly on Thursday morning. 

The grand finale to the whole week was the farewell party and Finnish evening on that evening where the students and teachers had a chance to taste typical Finnish treats, listen to and sing Finnish music, play some games and of course, meet Santa himself!

During the week and project tasks but especially in other activities (ice swimming, evening at school and hanging around together) they created long-lasting friendships and that is as important as any end product of the week – if even more important.

Teija Kauppinen
English teacher
Pietarsaaren lukio

When we arrived back from Spain, we got the idea of presenting entrepreneurship work we did there to our fellow classmates. So we got the necessary materials like the questionnaire and the canvas and got to work. We also did the six thinking hats technique. They divided themselves into groups and got to work. They took the tasks seriously and at the end of the two periods they presented their work to others. We did this in two classes.

Janez Vončina & Gašper Rejc