“I know if I had not gone to Green School I really don’t know who I would be … and I don’t know if I would be me … or if I would be in the place where I am comfortable enough to be me.”
– Elle O’Brien, Green School Alumni
Elle O’Brien, Green School Valedictorian in 2016, decided to take a gap year after graduating from Green School. The three, life-changing years Elle spent in the bamboo school in the jungle of Bali, ignited a flame for exploration and purpose. Embarking on her gap year, Elle sought to explore the world and to discover how she, as a young woman, could make an impact on the world. Traveling, volunteering, gaining new skills and reconnecting with friends and family were milestones on the gap year learning journey – before embarking on the next leg of the journey – studying at Quest University in Canada.
“While at Green School, Elle was the peace-maker in the class. Some high schoolers liked to group themselves but Elle brought her classmates together. She was truly a Green School graduate that reflects the outcome of the education that we pursue. Unlike other schools which educate for academic excellence only, Green School emphasizes on holistic education and nurture a human being to be a kind and passionate individual…”
– Melinda Chickering, Green School Academic Advisor
Soon after graduating in June 2016, Elle took a 2-month Outward Bound Instructor Development Course in Maine, USA. It led her to teach in the outdoor environment through expeditions: backpacking, rock climbing, wilderness first aid, sailing, whitewater canoeing. This was the time of her life, and she only took 1 shower the entire time!
She also took STCW, a week-long intensive course to provide a base level required training for working on boats (first aid, basic firefighting, emergency situations, etc).
At the end of 2016, she flew to Morocco to attend COP22, the United Nation Climate Conference with Earthbound and reunited with Green School Team who attended as well. She continued her trip to South of Spain to meet another Green School student, Valeria where they did a Helpx (volunteer work in exchange for free accommodation and food on farms, backpacker hostels, lodges, horse stables and even sailing boats) outside of Granada staying with a family entirely off the grid and also helped them with a week-long olive harvest. In December 2016, she visited another old friend from Green School. As Green School students come from all over the world, the students also build friendship and network across different continents.
To close the year of 2016, Elle flew to the Exumas, Bahamas, and volunteer in the very isolated yet beautiful environment. She worked on a 53-foot tugboat for a marine salvage company until May 2017. Marine salvage is similar to the coast guard or a towing company, but they are non-governmental and respond to any situation of peril or maintenance in the Bahamian waters (plane crash, running aground, sinking, engine failure, or simply needing a mooring to be installed).
When Elle arrived in the Bahamas she was vegan. She soon realized that her diet was challenging on a remote island and made some tough decisions. She decided to bring her free diving to another level as well as using a Hawaiian sling. Catching invasive species, the lionfish and learning how to remove their poisonous spines, prepare and cook them.
The six-month volunteer work involved a lot of discipline, cleaning, maintenance, learning the inner workings of small companies, and much more. But it also allowed the time and space for her to get into freediving and kiteboarding and learn to further care and cook for herself and others, and become confident in her independence.
She and one other person were in charge of the caretaking of the vessel, and when they had a job where all crew needed to be on board, Elle was the full-time cook.
As the summertime approached, she traveled to Florida, the Easter seaboard and Canada (Ontario & British Columbia) to meet her mother, Pauline O’Brien. Pauline currently lives in Bali since their family moved to the island for Green School and still actively volunteers at Green School’s recycling center, KemBali. She spent a great time to reconnect with family and old friends and even stayed with people from Bali.
As an old saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun, so did a gap year in Elle’s life.
It was a fantastic year of learning, volunteering, exploration, and movement. Now, Elle is glad to be settling in again at Quest University in her Foundation year studies. It is a lot of hard work, but Elle is enjoying the experience. She feels great to be in an academic setting again after so long. The mountains, the cool air, glacier melt rivers and dense forest and her new passion, rock climbing… She feels very much at home there, and has made the best of friends.
But reflecting back on missing the jungles of Bali and Green School, Elle reminisces,
“ I do think of the Green School and Bali every day though and miss the ceremonies and hectic heat, and Ibu Kadek’s cooking.”
Watch Elle’s Green Stone Presentation as a high school final project to graduate from Green School Bali.
Green School Bali Open Days Click HERE
Download a Green School Prospectus
We currently enrol nearly 300 students (ages 6-18 years old) from the villages surrounding Green School in ‘Ageg’, our extra-curricular English Language programme, meaning ‘Sustainability’ in Balinese. Students deliver 5 kilograms of sorted recyclable waste per semester: ‘Trash for Class’ in exchange for their classes. The recycled waste is delivered to Green School’s Kembali Recycling Facility.
A major focus of our community work is focused on sustainability learning and this is embedded in all aspects of the Kul Kul Connection programme. Find out more about Green School’s sustainability initiatives here. Our KKC Student Council is comprised of “Connectors” who involve themselves with Green School initiatives and raise awareness about these activities in their local community.
Other projects our community are involved in:
Local Scholars Programme
Green School’s Local Scholar’s Program offers fully funded scholarships for Indonesian students to attend Green School – covering tuition, field trips, resource needs and extracurricular costs, as appropriate.
This scholarship provides an opportunity for local children to access an international standard education, with the expectation that they will graduate and go into the world as change-makers within their local communities as well Bali, Indonesia and the world.
Who is eligible?
Scholarship selection is open and fundamentally, merit-based. Candidates are considered against criteria that reflect the philosophy, values and purpose of Green School. These include:
1. Family and student commitment to environmental sustainability
2. Social and emotional readiness to transition into an International school setting
3. Family commitment to contribute culturally to the Green School community
4. Particular talent or track-record in campaigning and activism
5. Applicants must be Indonesian citizens
6. Demonstration of financial need
Scholarship Impact
– Started in 2008/09 with 18 scholars enrolled – 19.5% of total enrollments
– 40 Indonesian students educated in 8 years
– 5 Scholars graduated
– 5 were accepted at University
“This is about the Indonesian kids. Many of the scholarship kids came to the trash walk the other morning and it was really uplifting to me to see how these kids are creating a green future for Bali. The whole thing is about creating green leaders for this island.” John Hardy, Green School Co-Founder
We currently enrol nearly 300 students (ages 6-18 years old) from the villages surrounding Green School in ‘Ageg’, our extra-curricular English Language programme, meaning ‘Sustainability’ in Balinese. Students deliver 5 kilograms of sorted recyclable waste per semester: ‘Trash for Class’ in exchange for their classes. The recycled waste is delivered to Green School’s Kembali, an on-campus waste management initiative.
The Bio Bus story represents the nexus of solution based learning, community engagement, and enterprise. Bio Bus is a social enterprise, initiated by Green School students, that strives to provide sustainable transport services to Green School students and community members. The project sponsors setup a cooking oil collection system in the local community. Once cooking oil is collected, it is sent to a processing facility to create the biofuel that is then used by the Bio Bus vehicles to transport students and community members.
The Bio Bus project has resulted in multiple learning opportunities and practical sustainability solutions. The decrease in passenger car trips resulted in carbon emissions reductions, as well as the ecological benefits of recycling cooking oil and using the biofuel as a fuel alternative. As well, a byproduct of the cooking oil recycling process is glycerine which can be further processed into sustainable soap products.
The use of bio soap reduces the use of monoculture palm oil based products that have chemical additives which pollute fresh water sources, not to mention the massive ecological impact of palm oil plantation related deforestation. This is one of many inspiring Green School projects.
A friend just told me about Green School’s TED Talk
The thematic class in the morning is my favourite and this month we are doing ‘Settlers’. We break into teams and each team pretends to be it’s own country. We are learning about history, migration, politics, trade, community and team-work. Each team makes their own shelters near where the school pigs are and we trade useful items, skills and food with the other countries. It’s fun and muddy!
I run with my friends down to our classroom and we kick our shoes off before going up the stairs to our classroom. I think it’s special to have a classroom that looks like a giant bamboo treehouse.
Riding on the BioBus with my friends is fun. I heard it runs with french fried oil.
For breakfast, I like a smoothie and toast with jam. We buy the jam from school, it’s rosella flavour and its sweet and tangy – yum.
I wake up just after the sun comes up and put on my favourite shorts and t-shirt. They’re old and comfortable, which is good, because we are going to get muddy today!
At Green School we are constantly seeking solutions to meet our needs that minimize embodied energy. The energy embodied in process water contributes to climate change. Our solution to this challenge was to install a Reverse Osmosis (RO) water filtration system to meet our drinking water consumption needs. The source of our facility potable water is a 60 meter deep well. Although the well water is drinkable, we decided to install a Reverse Osmosis Biofiltration System to ensure the purity and safety of the drinking water for our community.
A simple definition of aquaponics is that it is the integration of aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (the soil-less growing of plants) that grows fish and plants together in one closed system.
The fish waste provides an organic food source for the growing plants and the plants provide a natural filter for the water the fish live in. The third component of the system is the microbes (nitrifying bacteria) and composting red worms that thrive in the growing media. They do the job of converting the ammonia from the fish waste first into nitrites, then into nitrates and the solids into vermicompost that that are food for the plants.
Green School uses composting as one of its solid waste management strategies. We have a dedicated Compost Station on campus where biomass, kitchen waste and cow manure is collected and composed to create an organic material that is used as nutrient rich fertilizer for the permaculture gardens dispersed throughout the school grounds that supply our kitchen.
The Compost Station is a excellent place to learn from and connect with natural processes. To see the layers of a composting pile is to watch life itself in motion. The alternating green nitrogen and brown carbon layers are composed of every variety of waste; wood chips, brown leaves, green leaves, grass, food scraps, and manure.
As the valuable organic material starts to decompose a dark, rich, productive soil amendment that gardeners call Black Gold begins to evolve. If you push your hand into the pile you can feel the heat the process generates.
The Green School solid waste management system is one of the greatest examples of our systems thinking culture. Our waste is part of a closed system and understanding how to cycle it back through the environment and into our soil and food creates an authentic sense of connection to all the moving parts in our natural world. We are striving to create a closed loop system from the food forest and the gardens, to the kitchen, out to the composting pile and the grey water management system, back to our lunch plates and finally back to the composting toilet for yet another cycle.
We have four primary solid waste streams that we need to manage at Green School:
This is consistent with the principles of a circular economy where there is no such thing as waste and a movement away from the destructive practices of the “Take, Make, Waste” system of industrial production and consumption that plagues contemporary society.
The microhydro vortex embodies the learning by doing philosophy. In 2005, Green School launched this exciting renewable energy project with a vision and aspiration to be a carbon positive school in a carbon positive community. Through this project we have learned invaluable lessons in microhydro energy development, community engagement, and ecosystem services benefits. It is estimated that when the Vortex is commissioned sometime in 2016, that it will supply approximately 6 kW of renewable energy to the overall Green School energy portfolio, getting us that much closer to our goal of being a carbon positive school within a carbon positive community.
Solar energy is an important and material component of Green School’s renewable energy and carbon emissions reduction strategy. In 2011, Akuo Energy generously donated a solar PV and microgrid energy management system to Green School. The solar PV energy system is composed of 118 solar PV panels, a 72 kWh capacity lead acid battery bank, and inverters. Current PV panel optimum capacity contributes 21 kWh to Green School’s renewable energy portfolio. Under the current renewable energy strategy, we plan to expand the the solar PV share of the energy portfolio mix to meet Green School’s energy needs and get us closer to our goal of being a carbon positive member of a carbon positive community.