The school launched a "Waste Management Flower Garden" program to address waste problems and teach values to students. Students collect plastic waste, design flower gardens, and learn plant names. The program transforms eyesores into decorative items, keeps the campus clean, and pools waste for future sale. It provides a creative outlet and teaches environmental stewardship with no budget through community participation.

1. Waste Management Flower Garden<br />NHSS stands for Nangkor Higher Secondary School and its motto Nurturing the Health & Success of Students. The school aims to provide ‘learn in hand experience’ by providing opportunity in various fields to meet the benchmark of Green School. One of the greatest features of the school is the serene physical ambience. The campus has the magical weave of human and natural affairs. We strongly believe that if the physical ambience is prioritized, psycho-social ambience is true to follow in. The school caters to the needs of learners in many realistic ways to help them to perform better and become Green Citizens. The aesthetic combination of Waste Management Flower Gardens and Golden hedge (Wood Box) is an enchanting sight.<br />The Launching of a Programme<br />The school launched a programme called “Waste Management Flower Garden” on 15th July 2010 with the rationale to create campus/community a plastic waste free zone and minimize environmental pollution. <br />Community, schools and visitors produce loads and loads of wastes like plastic containers, polythene bags, thousands of plastic bottles and other non-degradable wrappers. These waste items litter the campus and community and are eyesore to all. Burning these items has its own impact to environment. It is a mess. Therefore, we came up with a programme that can address this waste problem and at the same time teach values to students and visitors. More than that, this programme turned out to be a wonderful platform to display our imagination and creativity. AimsThis programme is aimed to achieve these purposes. Firstly, to make school and community a litter free place to live in. Secondly, to transform these eyesore objects into aesthetically decorative items so as to create a better physical ambience. Thirdly, it is felt that in order to live in harmony with natural environment, we need to stop polluting right away. We felt that it is equally important to know the names of different flowers in order to develop love and respect for our nature.This programme is also aimed to pool all the plastic wastes in one place, store them in the form of containers or other designs till we have pooled enough to be sold as scraps generating fund for school. We want to encourage other schools and community members to follow this example. The school also shared this good practice with other school principals and teachers during the workshops held this winter and we also share our programmes with others through the publication of bimonthly ASPnet for UNESCO newsletters titled Nangkor Samphel Sardhep. Implementation processStudents collect all the plastic related wastes, design and compete in Inter-class Waste Management Flower Gardens that are being evaluated by same 5 judges every month providing feedbacks to class mentors and students for improvement. We encourage students to keep in mind four simple things while participating in the programme: Feel, Imagine, Do and Share.Students and their guide must collect all the plastic related wastes of any kinds within and beyond school campus. Each class is allotted a specific plot for the activity. Each class must plant flowers in the waste plastic containers/bottles/polythene bags etc. Torn/thrown polythene bags and plastic wrappers are stitched together. Top soils are put in these plastic bags for planting flower plants. Each class adopts and maintains their respective spots all the time. The participants are required to come up with creative designs and unique artistic leanings of their own. All those items which are scattered in and around campus are collected and transformed into decorative pieces. They must plant variety of species and nurture the plants all the time. They must write name of every flower. Participants must take critical initiatives and transform the plastic wastes into unique decorative items to beatify the campus. These items are artistically arranged making use of every bit of plastic waste and display beautifully all the time throughout the year. At the end of the year, the winners are awarded cash prizes.Cost and ResourcesIt is a ‘Zero’ budget activity. The main resources used are discarded plastic wastes, polythene bags, sweet & other item wrappers, various juice bottles, locally available bamboo, top soil and organic fertilizer produced in the campus.Monitoring & Evaluation This activity is an inter-class competition that is being monthly evaluated by a panel of judges. According to the feedbacks/suggestions of the judges, they need to bring improvements in their activity. Key partners of this activity are School Managers, School Health Coordinator, Class teachers and Students.Outcomes and ImpactThis programme has been very effective. School Principals and students appreciate the programme. 31 School Principals of Pemagatshel District and other educators visited the campus for sightseeing and sharing ideas. We are able to learn ourselves and teach other the names of different plant species. All the plastic related wastes are pooled in one spot in a very artistic manner. Other schools are being encouraged to come up with similar activities by officials concerned. Visitors including His Excellency The Hon’ble Education Minister, District Governor of Pemagatshel District, UNDP Country Representative to Bhutan, Education Monitoring Officers, District Education Officers and others highly appreciated this programme. We have 16 waste gardens in the campus promoting the concept of Green School for Green Bhutan.Strengths and Key innovative featuresStrengths of this programme are firstly, the school is able to come up with such unique activity for promoting pleasant physical ambience. Secondly, we are able to keep all harmful waste products related to plastic and others in one place thereby promoting clean campus/environment. Thirdly, since all the plants are labeled, students can learn the names of different plants thus developing love and respect to nature. It provides the required opportunity for students to test and demonstrate their creativity/ innovativeness by coming up with intricate decorations and artistic leanings in the campus. It also provides an opportunity for teachers and students to work collaboratively outside normal classroom. This activity really helps us in keeping our children engaged meaningfully. It is also helping us in realizing our understanding that if the campus is clean and beautifully maintained with beautiful flowers and artistically arranged plastic waste items, it will certainly improve and beautify the outlook of the campus thereby creating conducive atmosphere for teaching learning.Challenges and constraints and actions taken to overcomeOne of the challenges in this activity is regarding the storage of wastes within wastes. For example, some materials were cut into desired shapes hence bits of wastes were produced. However, we collect these bits and pieces together and stuff in the model-animals like deer, bird etc. These plastic wastes transformed into containers and artistic designs will be kept in the campus for 3-4 years. Once its colour and beauty are faded, it will be sold as scraps.Sustainability of the innovation and future plansSustainability of this activity is very high so long we keep our demand high for plastic products in many ways. This activity might meet an abrupt end if we stop or reduce the use of plastic related products in our daily chores. And that would be wonderful news. In continuation with the present Waste Management Flower Garden, as a follow up activity, we started Waste Management Agriculture Garden to supplement the school Food Basket in a small way.Yang T Dorji <br />