Most schools in Indonesia use lecturing format in teaching including on environment issue which is included in the science subject. It is assumed that after the students learned something about environment, they will automatically become environmentally concerned. In fact, there is a gap between knowledge and practice. People still use plastic bags which are not environmental friendly and trash is found everywhere. In short, people do not care about the environment.

Considering how difficult to change the behavior on environment of the old people, Lantan Bentala provides activities named make young kids love environment. We encourage young kids to love environment through several activities such as

  • plant easy-to-grow plants
  • make simple composting
  • use handkerchief instead of tissue paper
  • bring their own bags when shopping to reduce plastic bag
  • do not littering

Study or Play? One fifth grade student said that he loved the activity of planting sansiviera. "Why", I asked.

"Because we did not study. We just played," he answered.

"No", said one of his classmate. "We learned how to plant".

"Yes", I said. "You still study but in different way. Now you practice how to plant and not only read it as usual".

This show how limited teachers in our country ask the students how to practice the issue that they are studying.

The local newspaper reported that after the Agriculture Secondary School have more practice than theories in their curriculum, more students signed up. At school, the students plant vegetables. They could sell the vegetables to supermarket.

Kids teach their parents After we taught 4R (Reuse, Reduce, Recycle, Replant)in one pre-school, a mother said that her son told her for not buying any disposable bottle and tissue paper. He argued that disposable bottle is made from plastic while tissue paper is made from trees, therefore use handkerchief to wipe out the runny nose instead of tissue paper.

The other day, the son asked her mom to have separate trash bins, one for plastic trash, one for paper trash, and one for organic trash. The mother was so surprised since she never teach him about this issue.

I love this After I told the students in one pre-school that they could bring home the plants after they plant and let it grows in two months at school, various response from the students. One of them said that she has plenty of plants at home. The other said "Hmmm, I love this activity. Yes, I love this. I love this", while she was planting a plant. While others were also enjoy this activity, but she who was very excited involve in this activity as this is her first time involve in planting at school.

Kids and adults learned how to plant Last sunday, I taught twenty Sunday School kids aged 9-13 years old of the Indonesian Christian Church at Citra I, West Jakarta on how to plant. The activity was conducted after the second service. What was surprising me is, not only the kids were enthusiastic in this activity but also the adults. Some adults listened my explanation carefully. One of them said that she love how to plant but she did not have enough space at home. I told her that is not a problem as the kids using the used plastic cups for planting.

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Authors Evelyn Suleeman
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 2 pages link here
Aliases Make young kids love environment
Impact 444 page views
Created July 10, 2011 by Evelyn Suleeman
Modified December 31, 2022 by Irene Delgado
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