For everybody in Loyola Comunidad Educativa, protecting our natural environment is one of the main concerns. We began actively learning about the care for our planet in our classrooms a few years back. Throughout this time, we have created a Zero Waste Manifesto, stopped using single-use plastics in our cafeteria, composted, separated our waste, and disposed of it responsibly. Moreover, we held DIY workshops for our community where we taught how to make natural deodorant, solid shampoo bars, ecological food wrappers, vegetable milk, yogurt, among others.

Though we carried out many ecological practices within the school walls, it was not easy to effectively extend those practices into the home. That changed with the pandemic since now our homes turned into our classrooms. We invited our parents and families to replicate what we used to do at school.

We carried out projects in our English class to help diminish or eliminate single-use plastics in our bathrooms, kitchens, and everyday activities. Our class activities helped us develop ecological behavior, such as separating our solid waste properly, carrying it over to the Green Collection Spot within our area to be recycled, taking DIY workshops for sustainable items, and shopping zero-waste stores. This last activity gave way to a catalog of zero-waste product providers in our city, now available for our entire community.

Below you will find links to several of the activities mentioned above:

1. Zero Waste Manifesto
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1guCrn950TuytDqJxnu-6C6DRp5K-JANG/view?usp=s
haring

2. Interactive Presentation entitled: Unplastifying Loyola. It was submitted as part of our participation in the Unplastify Challenge hosted by National Geographic Learning. It´s main objective was to reduce the use of disposable plastic in our daily lives.
https://view.genial.ly/6014730117ca700d80bea01b/presentation-unplastify-project

3. Padlet: A space where students and parents of our school community can share the green practices they carry on at home.

https://padlet.com/ecologia/Bookmarks

4. Video: Periodically, we motivate more families to take care of our common home and we value the efforts of those who make an effort by sharing their actions to the community through video capsules.

https://www.canva.com/design/DAEWVt3fIKE/nD9prFF5Cx-ktDP8ausZkw/watch?utm_content=DAEWVt3fIKE&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_so
urce=homepage_design_men

We know there is a lot to do in favor of the planet we share. We are happy to do our part and will continue to learn and create eco-friendly habits. We also believe that sharing our experiences and listening to others will spread the word and inspire more of us to become responsible consumers and Earth´s spokespeople. Together we can make a difference.