The Plants Foster Parent Program for Greening the School Environment

Puri Artha E.S. (Doc. SD Puri Artha)

The Plants Foster Parent Program for Greening

the School Environment

By: Cecep Gaos, S.Pd

Puri Artha Elementary School, Perumahan Puri Telukjambe

Desa Sirnabaya Kec. Telukjambe Timur Kab. Karawang, Indonesia

Abstract

School has a significant role in educating student to keep and maintain the environment through the programs or curriculum. PuriArtha Elementary School has its own role on how educate its students so that they have awareness and responsibility in keeping and maintaining environment.

Some programs which are carried out in this school are the practice activity on how to recycle garbage, the garbage selection counseling, and so on. However, there is still other program that supports the Environmental Education for Sustainable Development (EESD) awareness. It is The Plants Foster Parent program. It is carried out annually. Each student should bring a plant to the school. The student gives name to his/her own plant. It is applied to all new grade one students. It starts when he/she become student for the first time at the school. So that, by carrying out the Plants Foster Parent program, each student at the school feels that he/she is the owner of the plant. So that, he/she will keep and water the plant in order that it will stay alive for a long time. 

This program could make the students have responsibility and respect to the environment. 

Keywords: environment, the Plants Foster Parent program, awareness, responsibility, respect

1. Introduction

Puri Artha Elementary School is a private Elementary School which was founded by Dharma Wanita (The Association of Employees’ Wives) of PERURI (Indonesia Integrated Security Printing and System) in 2002. It is located in Kompleks Perumahan Puri Telukjambe Sirnabaya Telukjambe Timur Karawang West Java Indonesia. Karawang is rice well-known city. People say it as Lumbung Padi city. Lumbung Padi means barn of rice or granary. 

This school is supported by qualified and experienced teachers from some various disciplines. It is supported by well enough facilities and infrastructures as well. It offers integrated national and local content curriculum which is based on the society needs. Through the active learning system, it puts the students as the subjects and the centers of learning, while the teachers as the motivators and facilitators.

As stated earlier, this school is located in Karawang City. It is a small city in West Java Indonesia which has hot weather, especially in dry season it becomes more extreme. In this condition and situation, plants are hard to grow. The flowers are hard to bloom. The weather becomes hotter, at last.

There are some other problems that we still face in the terms of how to keep and maintain the environment, especially the school environment. Some of them are lack of environmental awareness. For instance, there are still some students who throw the garbage anywhere, not into the trashcan. The other instance is there are still some students who do not understand on how make selections between organic and non-organic garbage. They throw the garbage into wrong trashcan. Besides, some of the students do not care about the plants existence. They sometimes forget to water them. They do not care about the plants’ life sustainability. 

Therefore, the school has a role and a responsibility to educate all school residents to keep and maintain the good environment quality.  In this case, the school has some various programs that educate and support students to master science and to possess environmental awareness. In the main curriculum structure, there is Science subject that gives students knowledge and skills about science and technology. In the local content, there is Environmental Education subject. Besides, there is a Science Club that facilitates students who have much more interest and awareness to science and environmental issues.

The teaching and learning process of the science mastery and environmental awareness could be carried out directly or indirectly. The direct teaching and learning process undergoes on the determined programs such as on Science subject and Environmental Education subject. Meanwhile, the indirect teaching learning process could be inserted into all subjects, and would become a habit. It is what we called as habituation.

2. Method

In order to embed the students’ awareness on environment, the school has some programs to carry out. Some of them are the practice activity on how to recycle garbage, the garbage selection counseling, and so on. However, there is still other program that supports the Environmental Education for Sustainable Development (EESD) awareness that will be explained in this paper.  It is the Plants Foster Parent program.

The Plants Foster Parent program is a program which each student should bring a plant to the school. Then he/she keeps the plant at school and waters it every day.

3. Result and Discussion

The Plants Foster Parent program is carried out annually. Each student should bring a plant to the school. The student gives name to his/her own plant. It is applied to all new grade one students. It starts when he/she become student for the first time at the school. So that, by carrying out the Plants Foster Parent program, each student at the school feels that he/she is the owner of the plant. So that, he/she will keep and water the plant in order that it will stay alive for a long time. 

As the result, all students from grade one to six have their own plants. Therefore, the school becomes green. There are lots of plants can grow more lasting. They can give us the fresh air, so that the weather is not too hot. The plants can cover us from the sun as well.

This program really supports the EESD. By doing this program, the students can possess a proud and responsibility to the environment. They can respect to the nature. 

In 2014, our school took a part in Healthy School Competition for The Province Level. We become a representative of our city in it. To success this competition, there are some parties who take a part and give their supports, in form of material or non-material. They are Puri Artha Foundation, the Local Government of Karawang, Karawang Health Affair, Karawang Society Welfare Affair, Karawang International Industrial City, BJB Bank, Ciptadent company, and so on.

4. References

- School Curriculum Documents of Puri Artha Elementary School

- Photographs of Puri Artha Elementary School Facilities and Infrastructures

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