Sustainable schools.

Valeria Leal

· 07 May 2021

Sustainable schools.

A Sustainable School is a project that seeks to promote and implement a school model whose heart is a self-sustainable building, that minimizes operating costs and facilitates meaningful learning about innovation and sustainability for the entire community. At the same time, also share values with students and communities so that they learn to take more care of the environment.

Members responsible for providing the basis for the creation of such schools should be committed to their community and be aware that they must educate in an innovative way to generate responsible behaviors and include activities to engage children and thus bring these ideas as an example to their homes.

Some of the benefits of creating sustainable schools include the following:

Lower power consumption.
Less waste, thanks to proper waste separation and reuse of materials.
Water saving.
Welfare among the members of the school community.
Education continues to future generations.

Learning is very important and these schools can serve as an example for children of future generations to take seriously the current situation on the planet, since they not only promote practices with the environment, but also commit themselves to inclusion, a culture of peace and tolerance to promote development of a community.

Sustainable schools in Latin America:

The first sustainable school in Latin America was built in Uruguay, Jaureguiberry, in 2016. The building was built with recycled materials such as tires, aluminum cans and glass bottles.

Two years later, in March 2018, Argentina's first sustainable public school was built in Mar Chiquita, Buenos Aires province. The building integrates about 25 tons of recycled materials — such as car covers, cans, bottles and cardboard — and traditional materials. More than 200 people volunteered in the construction project.

In 2020, in Valparaíso, Chile, the third Latin American sustainable school was built. With solar panels, tanks to collect rainwater, glazed walls and orchards this school is equipped, just like the previous ones.

These three buildings were chosen to carry out this project. Each was built over a period of 45 days with recyclable and traditional materials. These schools have structures capable of reusing rainwater, heating naturally, using renewable energy and producing food. This system was created by the American architect specializing in self-sustaining housing, Micheal Reynolds, who was part of the construction of the first two (schools in Uruguay and Argentina) with his company Earthship Biotecture. They were funded by private capital and public sector contributions, in addition to the participation of students from different parts of the world, who attended a theoretical-practical workshop at the same time as they built the buildings.

Images: were collected from the internet.

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