The Magazine of Dubai Women's College Volume 16 Issue 2, May ...

10 > FEATURE
“Our students
attend lectures
that educate
them about
environmental
issues. Also,
we create
contests to test
the student’s
knowledge
about their
environment“
says Afra
Al Mazrooi,
a geology
teacher with
Al Soufooh
Government
School.
GREEN
Education For UAE Children
Text: Shaikha Bukhashim & Nourah Abdulla
Global warming, deforestation, CFCs, recycling, the ozone layer
are just a few words that young people might have heard about,
but never had the chance to understand the strong impact they have
on their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren.
People gain their knowledge from schools, but
it seems that the country’s schools’ curricula
don’t include the environment as a compulsory
subject. Schools are usually left with one option:
extra-curricular activities. Having schoolchildren
participating in environment-related
activities might happen or might not according
to the school’s policy and flexibility.
Private Schools
Several private schools hold activities and field
trips to help their students learn about the
environment. Dubai National School (DNS)
is one of the schools that hold activities for
their students to build their environmental
awareness. The school also has an environment
club that works on raising students’ awareness
of environmental issues. “Our environment
club began in 2000-2001. The club holds
several activities and competitions, which help
students learn about the environment and
inspire them to create small signs in the
school reminding students and teachers to save
water and electricity,” says Bassima Daouk, Head
of the Activities and Guidance Department at
DNS. The school encourages students, usually
from grades 2 to 12, to participate
in competitions about the environment such
as the Ecology Footprint workshops and
clean up campaign organized by the Emirates
Environment Group (EEG), ‘For A Better
Environment’ in cooperation with Shell, the
oil company, Zayed International Award For
Environment, WET Program for conserving
water and many more.Bassima says the school
holds several annual activities. A few of them
are the Clean Up Day in cooperation with
Dubai Municipality, a radio competition,
collecting old books and batteries and
recycling them. She also explains that the
best environmental activity the students have
ever done was back in 2004, which was a
fashion show that students from grades 9 to
12 joined using papers and many other old
tools to teach students that objects like paper
and cans can be re-used on different aspects
of our lives.
Nawal Al Hayek, Head of the Science and
Physical Science Department at DNS, says,
“We hold lots of activities and clean up
campaigns which both boys and girls work
on in the school.” The school sends them on
field trips to different places and one of them