Trained educators are proving they can impact students’ lives far beyond academics by championing sustainability within the classroom.
The Green Wira Showcase 2.0, held late last year in Subang Jaya, Selangor, highlighted a growing movement to equip Malaysian teachers with the tools to implement zero-waste living and green initiatives.
Zero Waste Malaysia (ZWM) education programme manager Irene Chooi said the focus was on training teachers not just in recycling practices, but also skills such as project proposal development and budget management.
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“In 2022, our stakeholders wanted us to go to schools and conduct projects.
“By early 2025, we had trained 254 teachers,” she said.
Chooi added that these teachers had since applied what they learned to launch initiatives alongside their students.
“Our goal is to ensure that there is at least one effective green programme running in schools,” she said.
Hosted by ZWM at Project A Reka Cipta, the showcase featured an exhibition, student-led booths, family-friendly workshops and silk screen printing.
Among the highlights was SK Bandar Baru Sungai Buloh teacher Asyraf Abdullah’s project which involved used coffee grounds to fertilise mushrooms.
“I am an English teacher, but I incorporated green initiatives into my lessons.
“Through the project, my students learned words such as ‘pasteurised’ and ‘inoculate’, which are rare words for them.
“This shows green initiatives can be integrated into classroom learning,” the 35-year-old said.
The event saw 19 students leading public education booths, showcasing projects that ranged from reusing spent coffee grounds as a substrate to grow mushrooms, to repurposing textile waste into bottle holders.
The programme also highlighted the impact of seed funding.
Teachers who received RM10,000 grants shared how the funds helped kick-start ecosystem transformations in their schools to facilitate behaviour change.
These included a materials recovery facility at SJK (C) Pui Ying and SMK (P) Pudu, as well as an organic food waste management system using black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) at SMK Bandar Damai Perdana, complete with a chicken coop and aquaponic system.
To date, the Green Wira Programme has trained 304 local educators and 1,200 student leaders.
These efforts have empowered 9,000 students and achieved an estimated reduction of 4,300kg in carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. — By SHEILA SRI PRIYA
