By Cindy Mathys

At a school in Calvinia, there is graffiti art on walls, and the school is in desperate need of a new coat of paint. Instead of depending on businesses in the area to assist, learners and educators have started a vegetable garden, and will sell the fresh produce in order to buy the paint.

This is just one of the few initiatives that the school has started since being part of the Eco-Schools Program developed by WWF and supported by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA).

The Eco-Schools program is designed to encourage curriculum-based action for a healthy environment. It is an internationally recognized award scheme that accredits schools that make a commitment to continuously improve their school's environmental performance.

Upon deciding on being part of the program, learners and educators commit to an ongoing process of developing lesson plans and learner-centered activities, by choosing at least three focus areas, developing lesson plans and school improvement plans.

The Succulent Karoo node is currently being implemented at schools in the Hantam-Tanqua-Roggeveld area. This node is supported by Kirsten Fourie of the Botanical Society of South Africa, and received funding from the SKEPPIES fund in order to get the node off the ground.

The three schools—Hantam High School, Protea Primary and Protea high schools—have been working hard in order to implement their plans they set out at the beginning of 2007 upon coming on board.

The Node Coordinator, Marieta Nel, wrote in her report for 2007 that at the start of the program a workshop was held in partnership with the Northern Cape Department of Economic Affairs, Environmental Affairs & Tourism: Directorate Environmental Education.

"This workshop was a great success and played a large role in assisting lead teachers to understand the Eco-Schools programme and focus area choices," Nel wrote.

In her report, Nel gave feedback on each of the three schools, what they have achieved in 2007, and what some of them will be looking at this year.

Last year Protea Primary School started working on improving their school grounds, despite there being a scarcity of water. Their three focus areas, Natural Science, Mathematics and Languages, are all contributing towards improving the school’s environment. They developed vegetable gardens, and with regards to mathematics, they did problem solving by measuring the water usage and the rainfall. This year their attentions will be focused on upgrading their netball and rugby fields.

At Hantam High School, their focus areas were health and safety, school grounds and fieldwork, and natural science. Food gardens were developed to make the learners aware of the health aspects of fresh vegetables, and the produce will also be sold to raise funds for paint. They cleared weeds and had an irrigation system installed, and like Protea Primary they also measured, recorded and monitored rainfall and the root systems of plants.

Less was achieved at Protea High School due to the national strike, and teachers and students then had to work over time in order to catch up. However, they did manage to not only look after their own school garden, but also those of some of the guesthouses in Nieuwoudtville. This year they will finish their projects they set to do last year and also implement some other ideas that they had been thinking about. Overall, Nel wrote that the schools had managed to achieve a lot with very little resources.

"The schools have successfully created vegetable gardens in spite of limited water, and learners were active in the vegetable gardens on Saturdays. A wonderful opportunity for 2008 is that the learners of all four schools in Calvinia have been approached to be involved in the development of ideas for the Akkerendam Nature Reserve. This process involves poems, marketing slogans, art and essays about the biodiversity of the reserve," Nel wrote.

Cindy Mathys is the communications officer for the Succulent Karoo Ecosystem Programme (SKEP). This article originally appeared in SKEP Enews.