The button on the Zoom screen indicated there were 366 participants for the Eco-school class one morning last September. But in reality, around 900 students from Ateneo de Davao University Junior High School in Davao City, the Philippines, had joined the online class on marine plastics, and most of them were very enthusiastic.
When the lecturer, Ms Yasmin Nabilah Mohd Fauzee, a Malaysian doctoral student at Nara Institute of Science and Technology, began the class with an interactive quiz about ASEAN, the chat box lit up with notifications as students submitted their answers. As Ms Fauzee explained more about the state of marine plastic debris and plastic pollution, and conducted more quizzes, the students eagerly continued to throw in questions, comments, and answers.
The class was held by the Tokyo-based ASEAN-Japan Centre (AJC), in collaboration with ERIA's Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris (the Centre), to raise youth awareness of marine plastic in the ASEAN region. The Centre mapped out and contacted potential schools in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, while the AJC provided the lecturers and the materials. During September-October 2022, around 1,780 students in six schools in the four countries received the marine plastic debris classes under the Eco-school programme.
The programme was created in 2021 as a pilot project to implement the recommendations of AJC’s Future Leaders’ Declaration on ASEAN-Japan Cooperation for International Marine Plastic Waste. Launched in March 2021, the declaration aims to adopt and present a student-initiated declaration on international marine plastic litter between Japan and the 10 ASEAN member countries. Based on the declaration, the ASEAN-Japan Eco-school for Marine Plastic Waste Education was launched in September 2021, to implement the recommendations in Clause 18 (education and awareness) and Clause 24 (youth engagement) of the Declaration.
The Eco-school project supports the ASEAN Regional Action Plan for Combating Marine Debris in the ASEAN Member States (2021-2025) Component III: Public Awareness, Education and Outreach. It aims to further strengthen the partnership between Japan and ASEAN through multi-generational and cross-sectoral collaborations between the youth, educational/academic sector, and governments of ASEAN Member States (AMS) and Japan.
The Journey of Plastics
The Eco-school project reached 4,426 students from Japan, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and the Philippines from its launch in 2021 to October 2022. The lecturers are PhD candidates from ASEAN countries mostly studying in Japan, except for a few who study in their respective countries.
The materials taught to students range from the basics – what plastic is made of and why we use it – to the danger of single-use plastic, the plastic pollution situation in each country, and how plastic flows from the land to the ocean. The materials were presented in an interactive way attractive to young students, with a lot of pictures, and videos.
Ms Katrina Navallo, Programme Manager of AJC’s Research and Policy Analysis (RPA) Cluster, who oversees the Eco-school programme, said participating students have a variety of levels of environmental awareness.
The partial data from the elementary pre-survey showed 49.9% answered they know little about plastic, 45.1% know little about the plastic problem, and 55.5% know little about how to reduce plastic waste. Moreover, 47.6% expressed strong concern about the plastic problem, and 90.8% agreed they need to improve their behaviour on plastic use.
The partial data from the high school pre-survey showed 73.7% answered it was difficult for them to avoid using plastic products, but 97.8% said they wanted to reduce the amount of plastic they use at home, and 54.4% were strongly committed to future actions to reduce plastic waste.
'Based on the partial feedback we have received so far, the most questions came from the high school students. The questions and feedback from the high school students also tend to be a bit technical and show the intent to do more than just receive lessons, such as asking about follow-up activities and other organisations they can join that promote environment-related activities in their locales,' she said.
The feedback survey showed positive responses from the students, saying how they enjoyed the class and wished to have more classes in the future, and asking how they could participate in activities to prevent marine plastics.
Data from ASEAN schools about whether they have followed up the programme is not yet complete, said Ms Navallo. But an elementary school in Japan which participated last year used materials from the lecture to conduct simple research among Grade 5 students during this year’s summer break.
'They asked the students to visit a nearby body of water and investigate the presence of plastic waste in the water and surrounding area, with a set of guided questions,' said Ms Navallo.
To ensure the impact of the Eco-school, the ASEAN-Japan Centre is developing Train the Trainers, a marine plastic waste education training programme for educators.
'It aims to enable the educators to develop the knowledge to teach the subject to their students, either as part of their existing curriculum or as a one-time lecture session, similar to the current format of the Eco-school programme. The trainers who will complete the training will receive a follow-up [three months later] on how they have applied the knowledge gained and asking for evidence of their teaching sessions,' said Ms Navallo.
Communications Expert
The button on the Zoom screen indicated there were 366 participants for the Eco-school class one morning last September. But in reality, around 900 students from Ateneo de Davao University Junior High School in Davao City, the Philippines, had joined the online class on marine plastics, and most of them were very enthusiastic.
When the lecturer, Ms Yasmin Nabilah Mohd Fauzee, a Malaysian doctoral student at Nara Institute of Science and Technology, began the class with an interactive quiz about ASEAN, the chat box lit up with notifications as students submitted their answers. As Ms Fauzee explained more about the state of marine plastic debris and plastic pollution, and conducted more quizzes, the students eagerly continued to throw in questions, comments, and answers.
The class was held by the Tokyo-based ASEAN-Japan Centre (AJC), in collaboration with ERIA's Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris (the Centre), to raise youth awareness of marine plastic in the ASEAN region. The Centre mapped out and contacted potential schools in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, while the AJC provided the lecturers and the materials. During September-October 2022, around 1,780 students in six schools in the four countries received the marine plastic debris classes under the Eco-school programme.
The programme was created in 2021 as a pilot project to implement the recommendations of AJC’s Future Leaders’ Declaration on ASEAN-Japan Cooperation for International Marine Plastic Waste. Launched in March 2021, the declaration aims to adopt and present a student-initiated declaration on international marine plastic litter between Japan and the 10 ASEAN member countries. Based on the declaration, the ASEAN-Japan Eco-school for Marine Plastic Waste Education was launched in September 2021, to implement the recommendations in Clause 18 (education and awareness) and Clause 24 (youth engagement) of the Declaration.
The Eco-school project supports the ASEAN Regional Action Plan for Combating Marine Debris in the ASEAN Member States (2021-2025) Component III: Public Awareness, Education and Outreach. It aims to further strengthen the partnership between Japan and ASEAN through multi-generational and cross-sectoral collaborations between the youth, educational/academic sector, and governments of ASEAN Member States (AMS) and Japan.
The Journey of Plastics
The Eco-school project reached 4,426 students from Japan, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and the Philippines from its launch in 2021 to October 2022. The lecturers are PhD candidates from ASEAN countries mostly studying in Japan, except for a few who study in their respective countries.
The materials taught to students range from the basics – what plastic is made of and why we use it – to the danger of single-use plastic, the plastic pollution situation in each country, and how plastic flows from the land to the ocean. The materials were presented in an interactive way attractive to young students, with a lot of pictures, and videos.
Ms Katrina Navallo, Programme Manager of AJC’s Research and Policy Analysis (RPA) Cluster, who oversees the Eco-school programme, said participating students have a variety of levels of environmental awareness.
The partial data from the elementary pre-survey showed 49.9% answered they know little about plastic, 45.1% know little about the plastic problem, and 55.5% know little about how to reduce plastic waste. Moreover, 47.6% expressed strong concern about the plastic problem, and 90.8% agreed they need to improve their behaviour on plastic use.
The partial data from the high school pre-survey showed 73.7% answered it was difficult for them to avoid using plastic products, but 97.8% said they wanted to reduce the amount of plastic they use at home, and 54.4% were strongly committed to future actions to reduce plastic waste.
'Based on the partial feedback we have received so far, the most questions came from the high school students. The questions and feedback from the high school students also tend to be a bit technical and show the intent to do more than just receive lessons, such as asking about follow-up activities and other organisations they can join that promote environment-related activities in their locales,' she said.
The feedback survey showed positive responses from the students, saying how they enjoyed the class and wished to have more classes in the future, and asking how they could participate in activities to prevent marine plastics.
Data from ASEAN schools about whether they have followed up the programme is not yet complete, said Ms Navallo. But an elementary school in Japan which participated last year used materials from the lecture to conduct simple research among Grade 5 students during this year’s summer break.
'They asked the students to visit a nearby body of water and investigate the presence of plastic waste in the water and surrounding area, with a set of guided questions,' said Ms Navallo.
To ensure the impact of the Eco-school, the ASEAN-Japan Centre is developing Train the Trainers, a marine plastic waste education training programme for educators.
'It aims to enable the educators to develop the knowledge to teach the subject to their students, either as part of their existing curriculum or as a one-time lecture session, similar to the current format of the Eco-school programme. The trainers who will complete the training will receive a follow-up [three months later] on how they have applied the knowledge gained and asking for evidence of their teaching sessions,' said Ms Navallo.
Communications Expert
