Two young ‘champions’

Agatha Koh Brazil, Today Online 2 Jun 09;

GERALD Tan and Chua Jing Jing (picture) admit that hanging out with friends isn’t fun sometimes. In fact, it can be a bit stressful, they say.

The two 15-year-olds from Marsiling Secondary School can’t help it though. As two of the school’s 72 Environment Champions, they have to walk the green talk. Even if her schoolmates watch her and “hope she does the wrong things”, says Jing Jing.

“But I just do what I can and lead by example,” says the Champions’ vice–president. That, for her, includes being mindful of how much paper she’s using and switching off computers when not in use, rather than leaving them in standby mode.

Selected for their love and knowledge of good environmental practices, these greenies, like prefects, wear a badge that proudly distinguishes them as friends of the environment.

“There will be eyes watching,” says Gerald, the president. “They want to see that you really carry out what you preach.” So he uses both sides of every sheet of paper and carries his own water bottle around.

Their school, which was founded in 2000, has carved out a solid niche for itself in environment education, starting “green” enrichment programmes.

Its slew of green initiatives include using solar energy to drive the lights and fans in one of its common areas. Solar energy also powers the water sprinklers at the school’s herbs and spice garden, while a solar heater provides hot water for Food and Nutrition students in their cookery classes.

The school upped the focus by implementing an Environment Education programme, which sets out a three-pronged approach, including a community outreach programme. Its Environment Education Module (EEM), a non-examinable subject offered to lower secondary classes, weaves together common topics on the environment from the science and geography syllabus.

But sustaining younger kids’ interest can be a challenge. Jing Jing feels it is easier to get the message across to adults.

“They are the ones paying the bills, so they will be more receptive when they see how much money can be saved,” she tells me. Like the rest of the school’s “greenies”, Gerald and her take turns to host visitors — both students and adults — from schools in Singapore and abroad at their school’s environment gallery.

The Environment Education Hub, the first for any school here, is a 320-sq-m visitor area which took two and a half years to put together. Opened last month, it showcases three key areas of environment sustainability: Clean energy, water and environment.

An array of interactive exhibits — put together by the school’s Science and Geography teachers and students, and headed by Mdm Koh Saw Eng, the head of the school’s science department — includes talking shower heads, miniature wind turbines, as well as hydrogen-fuelled cars. It has seen visitors from China, Japan and the United States.

But Gerald thinks getting the message to kids is “easier” as “younger people are more receptive to new information”. Adults, he feels, seem to think they know it all.

Like Jing Jing, his concern for the environment was sparked off by the broad-based EEM course they took. What particularly grabbed his interest was the lessons in which he got to “play” with a hydrogen-fuelled car. If there is one thing he thinks will be achieved during his lifetime, Gerald is pretty sure it will be cars powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology in commercial use.

“It is very cool to have a car running on water,” he says.

Jing Jing hopes to pursue research on the environment — especially in solar energy — after her O levels, which both students are taking this year. Her dream? Solar energy being used to charge handphones.

But that’s in the future. Right now, on a day-to-day basis the two green warriors already have their hands full. Jing Jing gets passionate talking about people who do not realise basic facts like “air conditioners take up 75 per cent of a person’s energy bill”, while Gerald is upset by people doing things mindlessly, like not recycling plastic bottles.

Another of Gerald’s bugbears: The Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) campaign, he feels, is not working at all. For starters, it should not be limited to just the first Wednesday of every month, because “the message is not getting through to enough people”.

BYOB days, he says, should be on Saturdays and Sundays. And it should not be limited to just supermarkets and such, but encompass just about every retailer who has to give out carrier bags, plastic or otherwise.

“That way, everyone will get the message. Right now, it is just a half-hearted attempt.”