Philippa Stevenson: 'Enviroschools' entices pupils off the couch

Pervasive portrayals of today's school-age generation are not flattering or hopeful.

If we're to believe the picture some studies paint we've spawned selfish, fast food-munching, computer-addled, city dwelling Billy and Bessie Bunters.

It's not a happy thought when we consider that the junior Bunters will be in charge of the planet and its fragile and impaired ecosystem.

Thankfully, I simply don't believe we've shortchanged our kids that badly. And there is probably nothing that will restore the heart of even the gloomiest prophet of doom than the promising Enviroschools programme.

Like the tender shoot of a native plant poking through gorse, Enviroschools started small and in a bit of wasteland. It began in 1993 when the Hamilton City Council launched an environmental education trial with three city schools - Insoll Avenue and Hamilton East primaries, and Melville Intermediate.

What could have stayed just one more, well-meaning, local initiative got a boost four years later when the council employed sustainable architect Heidi Mardon in an education role.

Enviroschools' mission, which is now spread nationwide, is to harness children's wish for action and teach them to direct it for the benefit of them, their school and their wider community.

More than 200 schools with 75,000 youngsters are now planning, designing and creating sustainable schools with such efforts as recycling, worm farming, planting and managing playgrounds, gardens, parks, gullies, and stream banks, and restoring forest.

Mardon is now national director of the Enviroschools Foundation, which is chaired by former Dunedin Mayor Sukhi Turner.

In its short life, Enviroschools has formed an impressive network in every part of the country. Its principle funders have been the Environment Ministry sustainable management fund and the Tindall Foundation.

The Enviroschools Foundation's Hamilton-based national office provides training and resource material to regional co-ordinators and facilitators paid by local councils. The Enviroschools kit and handbook is packed with suggestions and information for teachers.

It's all designed to counteract what every school at some stage has experienced - the enthusiastic teacher who encourages his or her pupils to be conservation minded. Summer comes, the teacher and the kids move on and the newly planted garden withers in the sun.

Enviroschools is a "whole school" approach to environmental education and its network is designed to outlast the lone, enthusiastic individual. "It's more than kids planting trees," says programme manager Kristen Price.

"Kids make changes for themselves. They develop social skills. We've had reports of bullying being reduced and kids playing better together. They feel connected to the physical world and to each other."

Price is a corporate convert to the environmental cause. Tiring of strategic management in ivory towers she discovered Mardon and Enviroschools and felt she'd found a place she could make a difference.

The pair may have discarded the power suits but undoubtedly it's their professionalism and knowledge of the inside workings of local government and commerce that has helped create such a well-connected, far-thinking organisation.

Nothing reflects the marriage of commercial imperative and environmental advocacy better than the foundation's annual report.

Growing fatter by the year, the 2004 report was 96 pages. Just four, well-illustrated pages detailed the foundation's year.

This year, the programme is to be promoted to secondary schools. Some kura kaupapa (Maori language schools) are already Enviroschools but a project to translate the teacher resource kit into Maori is designed to match more schools' needs. The Tindall Foundation's three-year funding comes to an end; so the search is on for other backers.

For the first time since Enviroschools awards were offered, two schools - Auckland's Verran Rd and Pigeon Mountain schools - will take the top, green/gold award. In the three years the awards have run only bronze and silver awards have been won under the scheme's strict criteria.

Far from being computer-bound Bunters, many of our children are learning skills that will equip them to deal with our dubious legacy.

What can we do? Perhaps suggest our children or grandchildren's school becomes an Enviroschool.