Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Empathy to Impact is a podcast designed for educators dedicated to global citizenship education. We explore themes of sustainability, service learning, student leadership, and community engagement, empowering students to create a more just, equitable, and sustainable future.
While educators grasp the “why” and “what” of global citizenship, this podcast delves into the “how”. Through engaging storytelling and student voices, we provide authentic connections to curriculum, and showcase practical tools and frameworks that you can implement in your classroom.
By viewing learning experiences through the lens of Empathy to Impact, we can inspire students to take meaningful steps toward becoming global citizens and transform the culture of education in our schools.
Join us as we amplify the voices and stories of students who take ownership of their learning and make a difference in their communities.
This podcast is brought to you by Inspire Citizens.
Scott Jamieson: Welcome to another episode of the Empathy to Impact podcast.
Scott Jamieson: Today, not too far from home for me, I'm connecting with three students from St. Joseph's International Institute in Singapore.
Scott Jamieson: And we are going to be talking about students taking a lead role with sustainability at the school. And I think this is so cool, and I'm really excited to share this story with all of you. But before we start, I'm going to pass over to my three guests for some introductions.
Scott Jamieson: We're all in a different spot on each other's screen. So, okay, if you just want to raise your hand, or if you just want to say, hey, I'll go, and we'll edit all this mess out after.
Huy Mai: Hi, everyone. My name is Hui, I'm a grade 11 student at SGI International. Fun fact, this is actually my second time creating on the podcast, so it's really grateful to have this opportunity to share this really cool project that we've spent a lot of time on, and yeah, looking forward to a great conversation with everyone.
leiatan: Hi guys, I'm Leah, and fun fact, it's my first time on this podcast, so yeah.
DAPAN: Hi everyone, my name is David, and, fun, but maybe not that uncommon fight, is this is also my first time on the podcast, but I'm pretty excited to be here, so, you know, yeah, let's get it.
Scott Jamieson: I am really excited to have all of you joining me today, and I wonder if we can start by giving the listeners an overview of your project. Maybe take us back to the beginning, and what have you been working on, how has this evolved over time, and what impact has this had at your school?
DAPAN: Hui, would you like to go? Or, I cannot go?
Huy Mai: Sure, David, you can start. You know, we can maybe go all the way back to the beginning of sustainability squad.
DAPAN: Sure. So yeah,
DAPAN: We are the Sustainability Squad. We were started in, 2022, I think, if my memory serves me right. But, we actually weren't the founding members,
DAPAN: So, it started from, one of our seniors at the time who was really passionate about sustainability, and something that's really cool about this system is that it kind of passes down. So, it originally started as just a really small group of us. There's barely any members, maybe around 7 members around that.
DAPAN: And, even the scales that we were doing, or the impact that we were doing in our school, it was really just doing what we can, because, something in our school that's really big is service. But what we wanted to do was a form of direct service, so…
DAPAN: Rather than, like, just raising up money, or just, showing some sort of, advertisement, we really wanted to get into the grid of it, so some of the things that we started doing was,
DAPAN: we did, composting for our school. We got rid of plastics within our school as well. We held our regular, keeping up with the Climate workshop, and from there, it just kind of kept growing and growing, and we had, new members joining.
DAPAN: And one of those big members as well was Fui, who introduced the carbon audit to our group. So, he's actually, if you want to put it, he's a pioneer of that specific project as well. So, yeah, we just kept doing this, and…
DAPAN: yeah, we kept on just doing different projects that we felt could be a form of direct service, that could impact our school in a really good way. Just because I feel as though, there's nothing wrong, again, with other forms of service of trying to raise awareness, you know?
DAPAN: But I think it's good to have a grounded
DAPAN: activity, or a grounded form of service where you yourself can be involved in directly helping your school in some sort of way, or wherever you are. So…
DAPAN: Yeah, that's just, like, a quick story that we worked from before, to now, and, we're trying to, reestablish it again and pass down even, like,
DAPAN: our… I guess the leadership role of the sustainability squad, to, to our juniors, by next year. But yeah, that's just a quick story, I guess.
DAPAN: of how we think started, and how we got introduced to the Department of Audit, thanks so quickly. So, if you guys want to take the floor, but yeah, that's just something I wanted to share.
Huy Mai: Thank you, David. That was… yeah, so, as David said, we… the project that we wanted to talk about today, we really want to share, is a carbon audit, but really, you know, the work that we did in this project was really… it's very much predicated upon the…
Huy Mai: strong foundations that we had with previous members of the sustainability squad CCA in school, you know, everyone who contributed, everything from our teachers.
Huy Mai: To, you know, all the staff members, to all the students who helped make the Sustainability Squad a reality. So, you know, as much as today's story is something… as much as today's story
Huy Mai: It's about, you know, us taking the initiative, and you hear us talking about this a lot. We also took to highlight that, you know, everything that we are doing, that we have done in this project.
Huy Mai: is very much possible because of the work that others have done before us. You know, we stand on the shoulder of giants, so for them, we're really grateful.
Huy Mai: For, yeah, the opportunity to share our work, but obviously, but also to show our appreciation of the work that, yeah, not only people in our school, people everywhere, people in our communities, in our countries.
Huy Mai: you know, internationally, I do it.
Huy Mai: That's making this possible.
Scott Jamieson: Leah, anything you'd like to add?
leiatan: No.
Scott Jamieson: That's okay.
Scott Jamieson: I want to circle back to something that David said, talking about looking for that opportunity for direct service. And I think that's so cool, because a lot of times in school, we think about the different types of service we can do. We think about research.
Scott Jamieson: advocacy, direct service, and indirect service. A lot of times in schools, we get stuck with indirect service, with our fundraising activities, and when we're not working as closely and directly with our community partners.
Scott Jamieson: And sometimes we see a bit of a disconnect. Not to say these aren't good initiatives, not to say these things aren't doing good, but I often challenge schools when I'm working with them to say, how might we
Scott Jamieson: bring in some advocacy to this work? How might we bring in some more direct service? And I love that you guys are talking about
Scott Jamieson: that need for you, as changemakers and leaders, to be involved more directly with service at your school. And I love how you share that gratitude with those people who started this out and got you inspired.
Scott Jamieson: But the sustainability squad is, in itself, sustainable, as we pass down the torch to our next leaders, and you guys are already thinking about that. I think that's really cool.
Scott Jamieson: Tell me a little bit more about the carbon audit. How did that get started, and what have you learned through doing that? Who have you worked with, and what are you doing with that information?
Huy Mai: I think, so, there's a lot to it.
leiatan: Can I talk about the…
Huy Mai: Of course, yeah.
leiatan: No, no, you go first.
Scott Jamieson: Oh, yeah, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
leiatan: Okay, so I was, you mentioned the direct and indirect service. I think I 100% agree with what you said, because I feel like, in our school, a main thing that
leiatan: we do is recycling, we have recycled boxes in the classrooms, but I consider this as, like, an indirect service, because students only…
leiatan: like…
leiatan: To students, this doesn't help them reduce the amount of paper, plastic they use, because, oh, it's gonna get recycled. Instead, we could actually use more, or, you know, they don't know the end product of, what happened to all this paper.
leiatan: And I think, one thing that our sustainability squad does really well is… We recycle…
leiatan: We compost our leftover food, and we know what happens
leiatan: We know the whole process, the end product and everything, and I think that's a really good type of direct service that we do.
Scott Jamieson: I love that. Yeah, you think of that recycle bin, and that's only a small portion of the process.
Scott Jamieson: But when we can more deeply understand and even be involved in a bigger part of that process, maybe working with others who are part of that system with us, like, there's so much more cool learning
Scott Jamieson: That can happen there, but we can also more deeply invest ourselves into that process when we understand it on a deeper level.
Scott Jamieson: So how does that connect to your carbon knowledge? It sounds like there's some really cool things happening in terms of composting and recycling at your school, and I love how we're not looking for… a lot of service learning opportunities maybe look off to the horizon, to some distant community that maybe we don't really know very well. We don't know
Scott Jamieson: Really deeply, like, why those problems still exist, or what is being worked on.
Scott Jamieson: And I love how you guys are focusing right in your own school community.
Scott Jamieson: So, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to share a little bit about that carbon audit.
Huy Mai: Okay.
Huy Mai: There are quite a lot of things, so I'll just… so, Leah and David, just feel free to jump in, you know, whenever you think there's missing, or you can add to it, because it really was a group effort, and yeah, okay.
Huy Mai: I think something that I would immediately like to point back to, Scott, which is what you said, that point of we're not looking for, like, a faraway place, or people faraway who…
Huy Mai: maybe… It might need our help, but it might be difficult for us to reach.
Huy Mai: And that is very much the approach that we're looking at in terms of starting this project.
Huy Mai: And it all started about…
Huy Mai: a year and a half ago, in March, April 2024, and I say that specifically because it was then…
Huy Mai: We, as a CCA, the sustainability squad.
Huy Mai: We hosted a workshop series called Keeping Up with the Climate, where basically we invited community members, so students, teachers, anybody in our schoolroom
Huy Mai: to come to the workshops to learn more about, you know, what exactly is climate change, and what it looks like in Singapore.
Huy Mai: So, the workshops were great, we had, you know, a lot of turnout, participation was great, we have a lot of thoughtful discussions. But one thing that I noticed this sort of…
Huy Mai: I wouldn't say weakness, but I'll just say something that was missing from this discussion was that we were talking about how
Huy Mai: How might we be… how might we quantify exactly how much impact, how much damage we're doing to environment?
Huy Mai: And it was actually really surprising that the only data that we sort of had was how much electricity we consumed over a year.
Huy Mai: And I was thinking about… but…
Huy Mai: Wow, now that I think about it, there is so much missing from that, in terms of, you know, our
Huy Mai: our carbon footprint, right? The amount of greenhouse gases that you emit. As a school, as a person, you know, we have many types of emissions.
Huy Mai: electricity is obviously also water, gas, transportation, food, you know, materials, and waste, right? And I think it's not…
Huy Mai: How would… it would really not be, advantageous if we keep going forward, and we don't have a good idea of what exactly
Huy Mai: is the impact that we're doing on the environment, and we need to put it into a number, not only would that help people to understand and visualize the situation, but it would also be a clear benchmark for us, right? I like to… when I was talking to this project people, I like to look at this to
Huy Mai: like, you… let's do, like, our… our… let's say your business, right? Then the one metric you are really interested in is your profits, right? How much are you making, how much are you earning at the end of the day? It's the same thing for us. At the end of the day, how much greenhouse gases, how many… how much greenhouse gases are you emitting, and how can you
Huy Mai: Reduce it, how can we make it better?
Huy Mai: So, that was the sort of rationale we had in our project, which was,
Huy Mai: There is this thing missing from our school, which is a specific metric, the carbon footprint.
Huy Mai: that can measure how exactly, how big of an impact we're doing on the environment, and we, as the CCA, wanted to fill in that gap. We wanted to bring that number to the entire school. We wanted to use that number and to, you know, help to make it, you know, important discussion, so that
Huy Mai: Obviously, future discussions and actions around sustainability at SHI International can be more informed.
Huy Mai: So that's the sort of motivation that we have behind this whole project.
Huy Mai: Yeah.
Scott Jamieson: I love that, and I think it's so true, like, we just…
Scott Jamieson: Don't know what we don't know sometimes, and we're not even measuring how we're going to know if we're having an impact through some of the initiatives we're trying, like recycling or composting.
Scott Jamieson: We use a process when we're designing projects called Empathy to Impact.
Scott Jamieson: The first stage of that is, what is it I truly care about, and why? So, thinking about, with your project, we care about the environment, we care about climate change.
Scott Jamieson: Our next step is, how do I become more deeply aware of this issue? It's really easy to skip straight to action.
Scott Jamieson: And think about those actions we can take, but if we don't know, What our current…
Scott Jamieson: situation is, where we are with this… how do we know if we've had an impact with our action? We need to have those metrics, like you say, we need to quantify that somehow. And I love that it was you guys who identified this.
Scott Jamieson: How important is it that it's students leading this work?
DAPAN: Could I chime in for this one?
Scott Jamieson: Sure.
DAPAN: Okay, I think…
DAPAN: this are really held importance, at least in the way I see it, because if you place it to what it is, it isn't really simply just, finding out how much waste your school does, right?
DAPAN: In its purest form, it could be… it's really a form of education.
DAPAN: I think it's really cool to see, this form of hands-on education that, allows students to really understand the impact of their actions.
DAPAN: I think what we can, like, really learn from this, and why it's such important for students, is
DAPAN: the students, like, not to sound, like, in a really corny way, but it's true that we are the next generation of the planet.
DAPAN: And something really cool about this project was, many students had, in our school, kind of had this passion, or this initiative to actually do service, or some form of a be sustainable in our school.
DAPAN: However.
DAPAN: the crazy thing about that is, forgive me for not having the right specific stats, but, I remember, in one of our workshops, we showed how, we asked opinions on our school, and from what a lot of people said is that they already believed our school was very sustainable.
DAPAN: Without necessarily having the right, like, evidence for it. It's just simply from their observation, but then when you get to the nitty-gritty of it, it really is, oh wow, there's still so much more we can do. So, I think being able to
DAPAN: tear up the band-aid or unravel just really how much we're committing as a school, where the students themselves, which, admittedly, is probably the biggest population within the school, and probably, as well, the biggest contributors to this is,
DAPAN: really being able to see the importance of it, I think, again, like what I said earlier, it's a really important form of education to not just understand the impacts that we are doing now, but
DAPAN: even in a way to, prevent that in the future, or perhaps what we can bring to the workforce, you know, what we can bring to our future careers that, it isn't just about being sustainable for the school, right? But it really is about bringing this change in mentality, bringing this new,
DAPAN: new form of…
DAPAN: system that we have where we can be able to ensure that our resources that we're using up now aren't wasted, and it can pass on, again, to the next generation. And to really even ignite, perhaps, some form of, like.
DAPAN: latent passion maybe some students have. So it was really cool doing this project, seeing how many students actually did care about sustainability,
DAPAN: I mean, we talk about different services and CCAs as well, and yes, they're all good, right? There's nothing wrong with any of them. It's just that I feel like sometimes, when we come to sustainability, it's almost like, what can we do?
DAPAN: But having this project in place was really cool to see the passion of students come out with, like, oh, wow, I didn't know I was interested in this! And then that could further affect more, what they want to do in the future. And they get to learn more, and they get to understand, so…
DAPAN: Yeah, I think there's just a lot of benefits.
DAPAN: to why it's important to have students, take a lead in this. Not to say that, you know, adults can't help, but I think it's really good to allow the free space for students to express and students to
DAPAN: find ways to solve issues, or even get the data to find these issues in the first place. But yeah, it really is just a hands-on, good way for people to learn and educate themselves as well.
leiatan: Yeah, can I add something to that?
Scott Jamieson: Of course.
leiatan: I feel like, for students to take leadership and obtain useful information, it also
leiatan: tells the higher-ups, the board of directors, that, hey, your students, students of SJI, care about, the Earth, care about sustainability, and we want you guys to, also take action, because we are taking action. And I think that although I would love for every student in our school to automatically
leiatan: be sustainable. I do think that, having the entire school maybe Put in some…
leiatan: rules or something like that is really a stepping stone to, help educate and maybe make it a habit for all students to be more aware of
leiatan: how they… like, I'm aware about their sustainability.
Scott Jamieson: Beautifully said. I, I agree.
Scott Jamieson: I think that's… it's really important to have some structure to this, and to be working together as a community.
Scott Jamieson: to understand where we are, where we aspire to be, and then thinking about those small actions that we might be able to take to work towards that goal, and be able to measure that success. And with that measurement in mind.
Scott Jamieson: Hui, you said that at the very beginning of this, the only quantitative data that you had was electricity use.
Scott Jamieson: What else are you guys measuring these days?
Huy Mai: Okay, I'll just jump back and read it quickly.
Huy Mai: Honestly, at the start of a project, and we started doing this project, like, in earnest at around September, October-ish of last year, at the very start of this project, we had no idea either.
Huy Mai: We could only think, okay, electricity, maybe water, what, you know, what about things like food or transport, or, you know, what else are we missing? And more importantly, how would we actually measure those type of data?
Huy Mai: So, we went looking around for answers, and eventually, we found a great resource
Huy Mai: we came across, so the World Wildlife Fund, WWF, in Singapore, they have this program called Schools for Climate Action, where basically, when you sign up, you, you, you agree to become a WWF, an eco-school.
Huy Mai: We, you know, as a team of students working on this project, we receive training from them. Training on, okay, what exactly is carbon footprint, what is a carbon audit, and what are the methods, what are the ways, what are the things that we need to know in order to successfully carry out a carbon audit.
Huy Mai: So, shout out to WWF that, you know, this report was instrumental in helping us to accomplish this project.
Huy Mai: helping us to know what we're doing, and they also gave out some really, you know, useful resources and things to look out for that were of tremendous help throughout the project. So I would definitely say, you know, for any listeners who are interested in getting this project done.
Huy Mai: look out for NGOs, for organizations like WWF, that are very likely, not only able, but also, you know, very supportive. They will be willing to help you guys, right? Because, obviously, schools are a great place for, you know, community-led environmental action, and
Huy Mai: They will all… and I really do think they will do all they can to support you.
Huy Mai: That was our first step.
Huy Mai: we got through the data. And from that training, we realized that there are
Huy Mai: Broadly speaking, 6 things that we should be looking for.
Huy Mai: So, electricity is the first obvious one.
Huy Mai: Water.
Huy Mai: Gas use.
Huy Mai: Food, in terms of food consumption and food waste.
Huy Mai: Transport, transportation, you know, all forms circulation, different commuting, or school trips, or, you know, even teacher trips, whatever. And last but not least, material waste. What are the types of materials we are emitting that we are throwing out to the environment, even if we're recycling them? Because they will still have some form of greenhouse gas emissions.
Huy Mai: So, yeah, those are the six types of, sort of data that we were… that we were looking out for, that we were collecting data for. And I think it was…
Huy Mai: Yeah, for me, I think it covered mostly everything that we needed to account for in terms of the footprint at our school.
Scott Jamieson: I love that you were able to reach out to a local community partner. At Inspire Citizens, we often talk about who might we learn from and act with? And that's exactly what you guys are talking about here. You have that training from WWF,
Scott Jamieson: and now we're collaborating, we're part of their initiative to be a sustainable school. And I think that's such a great example of
Scott Jamieson: the possibilities that exist out there. You gave some great ideas in terms of… and great advice in terms of connecting with NGOs and local organizations right in your community, or beyond. We have an opportunity to connect over distance now through technology, and there are organizations out there looking to support schools.
Scott Jamieson: looking to build these initiatives and these mindsets from the starting point with students, so I think that's such great advice.
Scott Jamieson: As you are thinking about some of this… er, sorry, let me start that again. I told you I was going to mess something up.
Scott Jamieson: As you are starting to gather this data, and you mentioned early on that everyone in the community kind of felt like we were doing pretty good in terms of sustainability.
Scott Jamieson: Were there any uncomfortable conversations or uncomfortable moments as people started to see that maybe there were still some areas for improvement with sustainability in your community?
DAPAN: If I could add to this…
DAPAN: I think the more uncomfortable parts came in, in, like, some fun activities, quote-unquote fun, activities that we did, but,
DAPAN: we did activities where we would first measure our personal carbon, emissions. So, we did,
DAPAN: we first measured our own personal ones, using, like, the, online carving calculator. I forgot the specific name. Hui, if you could mention it, later, again, later, that would be great, but, yeah, I think the uncomfortability came from, first of all, realizing that
DAPAN: we, ourselves, actually do have quite a bit, images as individuals. And even realizing, I think the big part even came, I just remember we were doing the materials one. So we were going to, different classrooms.
DAPAN: And, getting the waste materials from, like, the recycling bin, and the trash bin, and seeing exactly what's being wasted.
DAPAN: And I think discomfort really came when, we saw that the stuff inside were, like.
DAPAN: stuff that our classmates use. So you could see, like, papers with the names written of our classmates, or, you can see the food, or the cans, or the items that you personally did, or maybe even if you didn't eat these things, or threw away these things, you had a connection to it.
DAPAN: And having this in mind, it was really, I think.
DAPAN: unnecessary discomfort, if that makes sense, where we first had to shut down our pride and realize, okay.
DAPAN: we are wasting. We have to admit that. We are wasting, and we are doing a big form of waste as well. But I think it was really cool to see how this form of discomfort didn't really bring anyone down.
DAPAN: If anything, it motivated people more to be like, hey.
DAPAN: I'm doing this… I'm doing this thing wrong, or there's these things that we could improve on, but at least now we're aware of it.
DAPAN: at least now we can also create more specific, more precise steps to take, you know?
DAPAN: Hey, at least now, we can acknowledge that, okay, there is an issue, and sure, it hurts right now, or it's just uncomfortable right now, the experience, but, you know.
DAPAN: it's fine, that's just part of the process, is understanding that, initial phase. But I think as it went on.
DAPAN: There was also a form of,
DAPAN: It's a form of humility, but I think a form of, inspiration as well, for us to realize, okay.
DAPAN: There's so much more we can do, and there's so much more we can help.
DAPAN: But, and it was really cool to see, having different students in our workshop after, different students creating different forms of initiatives. It could be as, it could be, like, really, really far-fetched, really strong, like, let's install,
DAPAN: Like, sensors in all the rooms or something like that. But also seeing small things like, okay.
DAPAN: Just making sure that ev- having people
DAPAN: call out, like, hey, we need to turn off the lights before we leave. We need to, throw away these straps properly. But I think, those small uncomfortable moments were… uncomfortable moments were very necessary, but also a really good learning experience for everyone.
Scott Jamieson: He's good? Alright.
leiatan: Can I…
Scott Jamieson: David, I like… oh, sorry, go ahead, go ahead.
leiatan: So I do have a question for David?
leiatan: Nope.
Scott Jamieson: Go ahead. Yeah.
leiatan: This interaction… what actually happened in the biochip that me and Hui just had.
leiatan: And basically, we were, gonna leave.
Scott Jamieson: Leah, can I get you to start from the beginning? My sound just kind of blipped a little bit. I'm sorry, I just want to get a clean recording. Sorry about that.
leiatan: So, I felt like this interaction that I had just…
leiatan: in the biochit that me and Hui just had was… it was in the morning, and we were gonna go out for the entire day to collect data in the rainforest, or the mangroves.
leiatan: And my friend said, hey, let's turn on the AC the entire day, so that when we get back, it's gonna be very cooling, you know? And she put it at 19 degrees, and…
leiatan: And I told her, oh, but we're gonna be gone for, like, 8 to 10 hours, are you sure you want to put it on? And she's like, yeah, I don't wanna come back to a hot room. And to me.
leiatan: I felt very shocked, because at 19 degrees for 8 to 10 hours, on with no one in the room, she's, first of all, waste a lot of electricity, and we were in a very, pretty secluded island in Malaysia.
leiatan: So… Yeah, I think that's one of my most shocking interactions with… yeah.
Scott Jamieson: I think sometimes we get caught up in our own kind of personal stories, and don't often take the time to slow down and think about the big picture. I think it's easy now. We have technology, and everything kind of comes fast and furious from our social media feeds, and sometimes…
Scott Jamieson: Things like climate change and the environment seem like…
Scott Jamieson: big issues that I really can't do anything about myself, but I love how you guys are talking about these small actions that really do add up when we do this, and also an opportunity to inspire others.
Scott Jamieson: Because our small actions, when we have other people, maybe we have 20 people, or 30, or 50, or 100, all of a sudden we've got a movement.
Scott Jamieson: And that's when things get really exciting. We can say, hey, look what we're doing, look at the measurable impact we have.
Scott Jamieson: And you can be part of this, too. You can take some of these solutions and take them home, and think about them at your house. So I think this gets really exciting when people do become more aware and become passionate about this, and join us in our work. I love what David said about that necessary discomfort.
Scott Jamieson: Because if we're gonna move to a more sustainable future.
Scott Jamieson: There is gonna be some uncomfortable moments, because we're so used to…
Scott Jamieson: being able to turn the air conditioning to 19 and leave it on all day, and we don't think too much about it. And we're gonna need that little bit of discomfort. Maybe it's a hot room. Maybe it's…
Scott Jamieson: making more sustainable choices with our shopping in terms of carbon footprint, with our food, where it's coming from, where our clothes are coming from. There's so many little opportunities.
Scott Jamieson: And I love how you guys have approached this as a community with a growth mindset. And I wonder if… Leah was talking a little bit about talking to the board of directors at your school, and thinking about rules, and how do we create systems and structures?
Scott Jamieson: how did this necessary discomfort turn into action? I guess one more thing before I pass over to you guys is thinking back to this
Scott Jamieson: thinking back to our empathy to impact approach, we have an issue we care about. We've become more deeply aware. We've become able, through building these new skills, with the training from WWF,
Scott Jamieson: So the last stage of our cycle is impact. So what has the impact been of this work?
Huy Mai: Thank you. I think, yeah, everything is an impact, right? That is the name of the podcast that we are, and, you know, as much as we, we, we, as much as our work was internal, you know, we, you know, getting the training from WWF, collecting the data.
Huy Mai: doing the actual calculations to figure out our carbon footprint, we also recognize that to really make our work effective, we need to bring this out to as many people as we can in the school communities. So, we did it in a variety of ways.
Huy Mai: First, we…
Huy Mai: hosted a series of workshops where we invited participants, you know, anyone really, students, teachers, anybody in our school, and we were like, hey guys, welcome to our… and there was actually what happened. Hey guys, welcome to our workshop.
Huy Mai: And I just…
Huy Mai: just a few moments, I just… we just gave them, just a big time, or just a big partial on the screen, and to go, hey guys, so we are here to discuss the school's covered footprint, and here it is. We just give it right to… right into the faces, because that's what I think, is really important when you're talking about things like.
Huy Mai: climate change or sustainability, we need to be upfront and very clear what people said. So we said, okay, so here were the data that we collected, here was… here were all the sources that we had, and here's the result. This is how much footprint we have, this is…
Huy Mai: How it's divided between, you know, food, waste, and emissions, and electricity and gas, all those things, right?
Huy Mai: And there were really… there were some really interesting insights and results. For example, I'm not… I can't quite recall the exact numbers now, but
Huy Mai: Almost everybody was shocked by just how much our school spent traveling in just one year.
Huy Mai: Because we as an international school, you know, and this is just talking about school trips, by the way, not trips taken outside of school, things like, trips taken within Singapore, things like, taken by sports teams, other venues, other schools, and
Huy Mai: Most of all, the… all the trips that we took to other countries, like the one that me and Liam just did, the ones we did for outdoor education, for subject trips, for all those kind of things, we as a school traveled so much, and I remember that there was almost this collective gas in the room.
Huy Mai: when we… and when I showed the book, I showed everyone the slide that showed just how much emissions came from transport.
Huy Mai: And that was the sort of, I think, reaction that… that was… that was sort of calm reaction that everybody had. They were like, we did not realize just how much admissions
Huy Mai: We brought. We are doing it at our school.
Huy Mai: And we… we… I had to think that, you know, that it was the sort of
Huy Mai: It was, like, one of the first times that there have been exposed, and that was really our goal, to recognize, hey, this data is missing.
Huy Mai: People don't know about this, so let's bring it to people, let's help them to know about this, right?
Huy Mai: And something else I would just like to add as well is that when you give people a very specific metric, you know, instead of saying, oh, our school is emitting a lot of greenhouse gases, okay, but this time you say, you know, each day, our school emits 5,000 kilograms of CO2 equivalent in terms of emission gases, and people
Huy Mai: That understanding and recognition, it is a lot better when you have some things missing.
Huy Mai: That's one thing that we did. We brought it in terms of having workshops inside of school.
Huy Mai: Leah and David can also talk about things, some other things that we did, even outside of school as well.
DAPAN: If I could, I guess, yeah, speak on this, impact,
DAPAN: I think something really cool that came out of this, is…
DAPAN: Admittedly, because it is, information that could lead to a big change, it's gonna take a process to start this, like, hope to start revamps in certain areas, or, do really big projects that can, boost,
DAPAN: our sustainability. But something I'd like to add is this kind of, like.
DAPAN: Not our motto, but a huge, like, drive for our service, which is the idea of teaspoons of change.
DAPAN: The idea that really little small actions that we do.
DAPAN: build up and add to a large, impact in the end of it. And I think this…
DAPAN: Audit itself was… the biggest impact, I'd say it had both,
DAPAN: first, I guess, within our school was really introducing
DAPAN: this… another form of awareness to everybody else, but also showing, again, like, as Leah said, that, hey, students are aware.
DAPAN: modern days, and we want to take action. And I think having that initial,
DAPAN: like, this push for it was the biggest impact we had, because, yeah, I think, again.
DAPAN: the idea that we are doing a lot of things, that we are in an international school. I think we are very privileged and very blessed to be able to do a lot of cool stuff in our school, having this really good education. But with that, I think as well comes the responsibility of being like, hey, we need to do our best.
DAPAN: to take care of what we have. And I think the big impact from this audit is really being able to have weight in our actions, really being able to have drive in what we're doing, that, okay, we're not just recycling, or we're not just
DAPAN: doing food compost because we think it's fun, right? But people really now have a deeper understanding, and I think what was really cool as well is having,
DAPAN: outside workshops that we did as well. Like, a few weeks ago, we had an outside workshop where we just, spoke with, different people, and shared our experience as well. And a really cool impact about that is
DAPAN: We may not understand, or we may not see right now, the reaction that people had directly, but what we were glad to have, at least, was to have a voice, right?
DAPAN: As students, it's really good that we were able to have a voice, in expressing our… I guess…
DAPAN: Not really our sets, but things that we're really passionate about.
DAPAN: And…
DAPAN: our climate, our Earth, our materials that we're using, our waste, is something that I think more and more students right now are being more…
DAPAN: passionate about. And something really cool that I'm really glad, thankful for this workshop we did is it ignited this for many students. It, enabled it, and I think being able to see this idea where
DAPAN: again, like, teaspoon of change, small interactions that students have done, small interactions that people in the workshops have said, okay, well, we can't really do anything big right now, but let me try at least, you know, being more aware, let me turn off the faucet, let me turn on the aircon, turn off the aircon when I'm leaving.
DAPAN: These ideas that each people that we can impact in a small way, we hope that it really does build up to a long-term, sustainable effect for everyone in this group.
DAPAN: And hopefully even to not just the school, but to their homes, to their workplaces, to wherever they go in the future. We're really hoping that this ongoing audit has a lasting effect where
DAPAN: People are more, aware now of what exactly they're doing, that when they go to these different areas in their life, which they will, they can bring along with that their… what they learned from this, from this, from the workshops, from the carbon audit itself.
leiatan: Scott, your mic.
Scott Jamieson: Thank you.
Scott Jamieson: Who better to have a voice for the future than young people?
Scott Jamieson: And I think, absolutely, to have a voice in this work, because it's your future. It's all of our future, but in many ways, it's mostly yours, as we…
Scott Jamieson: have…
Scott Jamieson: are moving on and sort of passing the torch. And I love how Hui's talking about the data makes it real.
Scott Jamieson: As we share that out with the community, it's… we think we're doing okay, but hey, look at this, there's definitely room for improvement.
Scott Jamieson: And with that in mind, we have a lot of our podcast listeners who are educators, or young change makers, like the three of you.
Scott Jamieson: What advice would you have to…
Scott Jamieson: begin work like this, to think about how we become more sustainable. What advice would you give them after the experiences that you've had?
leiatan: I think that for people who are just starting.
leiatan: Just keep in mind to keep going, don't stop, because… I think…
leiatan: everything that you do, as long as you do it for a year, two years, two years, that's gonna have an impact. So, I always think to myself, keep going and don't stop.
DAPAN: I think for me, one advice I could give is…
DAPAN: I guess, like, I think it complements layers, which is… just start.
DAPAN: You know, I think… No matter how small you are.
DAPAN: Really just taking the first steps can go a long way. And I don't like to say the work's easy.
DAPAN: I'll give you advice. Now, the work definitely is not easy.
DAPAN: But I think we have to understand it's a…
DAPAN: it's not as complicated as it seems, you know? You don't need to go through the biggest process of having everything so precise. You don't need to be perfect in every number, but I think just being able to start
DAPAN: And slowly taking time to refine your process. Slowly taking time to…
DAPAN: work out everything by the end of it, just making sure that everything… what you're doing is right. I think, yes, just… just start. It really isn't,
DAPAN: I think if you love it, and if you're passionate about it.
DAPAN: then really there isn't anything that can hold you back from doing what you want to do, and being able to help within your areas in life. So, yeah, just… just take those steps, you know, research what you can.
DAPAN: Ask for advice, and just start somewhere.
Huy Mai: I will just add one more thing to all the great things that Leah and David have said. Just one more thing, is that… and this is something that, you know, even I have to realize when I was doing this project, is that there are so many people, you know, students as well, so many people out there
Huy Mai: actually want to do something to help the environment. You know, we know that, you know, from the outside, right, from the surface level, it seems like nobody cares, saying, oh, there's all this bad news.
Huy Mai: There's all this…
Huy Mai: There's almost a sense of apathy that we sense, that nobody cares, that the next generation doesn't care for the environment. But that isn't true at all. Because, in fact, when we reached out, we were like, hey guys, do you guys want to help us collect data? We want to help to do the calculations? Do you want to help us do this project?
Huy Mai: They were, you know, they were very enthusiastic, they were very supportive, and they… we could really see
Huy Mai: I want to say… I want to say passion, but I'll almost take it a step further. I'll say responsibility, because I feel like so many young people, they, you know, that includes us, we recognize, we know that as the next, sort of, stewards of the planet, of Mother Earth.
Huy Mai: get the care of it. So…
Huy Mai: I think when, when you're… and this is especially important for, like, a community, sort of, like, grassroots project, right?
Huy Mai: even when it seems like nobody cares, people actually do care. So, reach out to people, especially to students and young people, and you will get a lot of support, you will get a lot of help, and I assure you, you know, things will seem difficult to engage people, especially worse at a few
Huy Mai: For a few things for us, but in the very end, we could really see how, yeah, young people do care about the environment. So, that's just something else that I want to bring to the table as well.
Scott Jamieson: Thank you to all three of you, such great advice, and I totally agree. I think it's not that people don't care, it's they don't know how to start. And I think that's why the world needs leaders like the three of you.
Scott Jamieson: To get them started, and start that momentum, and bring people in.
Scott Jamieson: someone has to take those first steps, like David is saying, and I think that having leaders like you who are willing to take that initiative, willing to put in the work.
Scott Jamieson: And willing to invite others in to be part of this is so, so important. Also want to give a shout out to my good friend Darcy Lunn for inspiring. I hear, teaspoons of change, and I know where that comes from. So, I think it's really cool to see his work kind of planting seeds with the three of you.
Scott Jamieson: Is there anything else that I haven't asked the right question to allow you to share about your project?
leiatan: Not for me. I think I've been a great host.
leiatan: What about you guys?
DAPAN: I think, every…
Huy Mai: I'll just go.
Huy Mai: something that… just one more thing I want to add is that, yes, even though this project is something that we did as a CCA, as just a school club, but
Huy Mai: for… it is something that, you know, we are actively working on trying to get done in school. We're talking with
Huy Mai: teachers, you know, Dr. Michael Johnson, our CEO, on how can we bring this to even more people, bringing this to more students in the classroom.
Huy Mai: And I just want to say that we just wanted to say that this sort of activity, where you think about your carbon footprint, your carbon emissions, you take actual concrete steps to calculate it.
Huy Mai: is something that can be very easily and effectively, you know, meaningfully integrated into lessons, right? You think about your sciences and your biology lessons.
Huy Mai: your geography, your environmental systems or societies, MIB, right? All of these things can be…
Huy Mai: taught, can be talked about, can be, like, activities inside the classrooms, and not only will they teach these very real concepts about, you know, environmental management and sustainability, but
Huy Mai: They relate to so many of the things that are, you know, included in the syllabus, this curriculum, right? So I would say, just for any teachers out there, definitely consider if you're teaching in one of these subjects, or just something that you can relate to.
Huy Mai: That teaching things like these can very much be
Huy Mai: it very much happened inside the classroom. We'd love to see that happen, because then the impact can be multiplied even further.
Scott Jamieson: Well, you might have a future working with Inspire Citizens, I think.
Scott Jamieson: That is… you share my opinion so much with that, and we…
Scott Jamieson: have this opportunity, you guys are doing this as a CCA outside of the classroom, but how might we look for ways in our curriculum with our youngest learners all the way through our schools to bring in these themes of sustainability and environmental awareness and
Scott Jamieson: My good friend Steve Sostack used to say, if we want students to take care of the planet, we gotta give them an opportunity to fall in love with it.
Scott Jamieson: And I think this is exactly what you're talking about here. I think it's beautifully said, and I hope a few people might think about taking your advice.
Scott Jamieson: I want to finish with a little bit of gratitude today, because meeting the three of you, and having a chance to learn more about your project, and just see the passion that you have for this work.
Scott Jamieson: As leaders of sustainability at your school.
Scott Jamieson: It is what inspires me and gives me hope for the future. And I'm really grateful to have had this opportunity to spend a little bit of time with all of you, and I'm really excited to share this story with all of our listeners. So, on behalf of everyone who's listening, a big thank you to all of you for the work you're doing, and I hope it continues at SJI.
Huy Mai: Thank you, everyone.
DAPAN: Thank you so much.
leiatan: Hmm.
Scott Jamieson: And… I think we're good.
Scott Jamieson: I'm gonna turn off the recording…