The Goal?

So, what’s the vision? First and foremost, says Lisa, the curriculum will help students understand how they can make positive change – and the UN’s Sustainable Development goals are invaluable for pointing the way. “They include thinking about the Earth as a biosphere – as the T-shirt slogan runs, there is no Planet B. And the goals make clear that sustainability goes beyond care for our planet. We must also think about society as a whole and the individuals in that society. How do we create an economy that allows life on Earth to be not just desirable for a few but sustainable for everybody? The goals are bold and aspirational, but specific enough to give us a roadmap for the kind of learning experiences our kids need to have to grasp and resolve these questions.”

In November, parents, staff, teachers and students got together for the first ever Sustainability Sprint – an intensive day that moved the needle for sustainability at ZIS. Participants identified three key areas of focus within the Strategic Plan. The first was Academic Challenge and Support, giving students a substantial and interdisciplinary curriculum experience around sustainability, helping them to problem-solve and develop solutions that give them a sense of agency. The second area of focus was Local Impact, Global Reach, ensuring students participate in activities that both anchor them in Switzerland and prepare them to think about the very different sustainability challenges that exist around the world. Finally, participants identified the importance of a Thriving School Community, caring for students’ mental health and resilience: how they learn to deal with environmental anxiety and work with others to make positive change.

“There is a growing challenge around depression affiliated with a recognition that the world is fragile,” says Lisa. “We must help our young people be solutions-focused, engaged, and optimistic – and to do what they can. There’s a strong relationship between taking action and reducing anxiety. Giving students opportunities to develop a sense of agency has real implications for the curriculum and the pedagogy we use in the classroom.”

Grade 10 student Wesley Przybylowic took part in the Sprint, helping to figure out how to integrate stakeholders – students, parents, community members – into a vision for a sustainable ZIS. “It felt really cool to sit down with all these different people and hear their thoughts,” they say. Wesley believes it’s vital for the school to get sustainability right – for this generation and the next. “Before, sustainability was a concept. Now, it’s becoming a reality: we are starting to come together. I think we can set an example to staff and students as well as the community around us.

We may only be one school, but we can still have an effect and show that sustainability is possible. We need to find ways to organise, co-ordinate and achieve this. I feel like we have the capability to do really great things with what we have here at ZIS. And with our international community, we have the potential to make a big difference.”

Jonathan Kirkwood, Assistant Principal Curriculum for Grades 6-12, is one of those responsible for making sure those great things happen in the classroom and beyond. He says he’s excited by the challenge of integrating sustainability into the curriculum – and he’s not the only one. “A lot of curricula related to sustainability right now is being driven by the teachers involved. That works because we hire teachers who live their values and are driven by their passion. But the next step is to ensure we have a structure that pervades the entire curriculum, so every student gets the opportunity to learn about sustainability. And I’m thrilled by that. For every single year, every subject, we need to be looking for opportunities to advance student engagement with sustainability, so our curriculum is intentional and strategic.”

In Grade 9, for example, the Beyond the Classroom trip in August sees students spending a week in the mountains, helping to maintain the environment. Along with service projects, such as mending paths, they will also see first-hand what they’ve learned about in science: concepts of stability and change, the importance of biodiversity and the ecosystem, or the consequences of invasive species.

It’s a huge project, and Jonathan is keen to ensure ZIS gets it right. To that end, he is working with organisations such as the Cloud Institute and the Robert F Kennedy Foundation to ensure the correct standards and benchmarks are incorporated, and that the definition of sustainability is suitably comprehensive. “The UN definition of sustainability covers the environmental, the economic and the social,” says Jonathan. “You can’t address one without addressing the other.” That’s particularly important in an international school, he believes, where students will take their learning all over the world. “Our students are going to become leaders in various fields. We want them to be highly successful but also know what they can achieve for the common good with that success. Habits are learned: we learn to care.”

And if you’re going to walk the walk, you must also talk the talk – not a small challenge for a mid-sized enterprise, with a budget of CHF46m a year, 275 full-time staff and around 1,300 students. All those people need heated and furnished spaces, and they need to be able to come to school and go home again. And so, Lisa, Chief Operating Officer Stefan Mühlemann and the team are currently undertaking a detailed energy audit to work out exactly what the school’s carbon footprint is, and how that could be reduced. As Stefan says: “We want to be a responsible institutional citizen that places a high value on being embedded in the local community.”

Transportation, buildings and energy each account for roughly one third of the school’s environmental impact and CO₂ emissions, he points out, and the school will address all three. That will start with low-hanging fruit, such as banning plastic bottles on campus. “It might seem like a small thing but it’s good because it’s tangible, everyone sees it, and its immediately achievable,” says Stefan. Next will come the big, expensive projects, such as replacing the Lower School’s oil heating with geothermal heating, which already powers the Middle and Upper School, and installing photovoltaicpanels for solar energy on suitable surfaces.

It’s an exciting time to be part of the ZIS community, says Lisa – and it’s something every member of that community can contribute to, from students and staff to parents. “At ZIS, families are eager to support sustainability. It helps connect them to the school because they see that we have shared values. It’s about being part of something bigger than themselves – whether it’s the school specifically or just a community of people who want the world to be a better place.”