ORT Dafna school is in the Northern part of Israel and is one of the best schools in ORT Israel network, with a variety of successful projects and collaboration in the past. The school was very keen to join the SALL project, after a very good experience and collaboration with the ORT R&D team in the OSOS project.
This school addresses the environmental pollution caused by large-scale consumption of disposable tableware – especially plastic or other non-degradable bags and dishes people use when eating outdoors. They have targeted a focus group for this living-lab project: people from “Etgarim” (Hebrew for challenges) – a non-profit organization dedicated to the empowerment and social integration of people with disabilities through outdoor sports.
25 students of 13-14 years old and 4 teachers collaborated with many stakeholders, such as the municipality, scouts group, the regional cities association, the Ministry of Environmental protection and members of the Etgarim organization, in order to understand their needs and the reason for using plastic tableware, and to think of ways to reduce it.
The municipality supports this living-lab project and defines this environmental challenge as one of the issues to be dealt by the city. With this support, the school community wishes to make an impact across the city and to reach as many people as possible.
Some feedbacks from teachers, students and societal actors were collected. The leading teacher learned a lot during this project as this topic was not something she dealt with before with her students and didn’t have deep background. The students have become aware of the use of plastic tableware in their daily lives, and the same for their families. This is also the case in the teachers’ lounge at school and for a school trip where only reusable dishes were used. The teachers were surprised that many stakeholders agreed to collaborate with them. Especially from the Mayor and the Municipality, as the project subject was highly relevant to the new approach that the city wanted to promote regarding environmental issues. Also, the Scouts group agreed immediately to participate in the project and contribute in finding possible solutions.
Contact
Yair Ben-Horin
National coordinator – ORT Israel
Mail