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ZIS Teacher and ZIS EC Students exploring in the forest

A Culture of Sustainability

At ZIS we are committed to educating our students and community for a sustainable future.

The world is changing. Our children will grow up with challenges that we have never faced before and need the tools to meet those challenges.

We don’t just teach students what sustainability is, we give them hope and lead by example so they can change the world.

Our mission Learn, Care, Challenge, Lead governs how we build sustainability into day-to-day learning. 

  • Embedded Approach – sustainability is integrated throughout our curriculum, recognizing the relationship between social and ecological systems across all of our learning opportunities.

     

  • United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – at the heart of our decision-making.

     

  • Connecting with the local community – we act with civic responsibility both locally and globally.

     

  • Sustainability Committee – a group that reviews practices and curriculum and guides the school decision-making. 

     

  • Food Forest – we manage Switzerland's first edible food forest in a school, on our Lower School Campus.

     

Our students graduate with the agency and skills to become empathetic change makers, leading the way to a healthier and more balanced future. 

UN Sustainable Development Goals Logo

Educating for Sustainability

Education for Sustainability (EfS) is an educational approach that aims to develop students, schools and communities with the values and the motivation to take action for sustainability – in their personal lives, within their community and also at a global scale, now and in the future.

Source: Sustainability in Schools

Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to demonstrate that both people and the planet are interconnected parts of a healthy and sustainable future. 

Examples

Food Forest at the Lower School

ZIS is delighted to have opened Switzerland's first edible food forest on our Primary Campus in October 2021. With sustainability becoming even more embedded in our curriculum, this is the perfect example of how we educate students to become responsible citizens, enabling them to gain the knowledge and skills to make the world a better place. ZIS is a non-profit organization and the food forest was wholly funded by donations to the ZIS Annual Fund.

The food forest is a carefully-designed garden space that mimics a natural forest ecosystem, with mainly edible plants. It offers students in Preschool to Grade 5 a hands-on learning environment connecting Science and Social Studies units and introduces a nature-based element to our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program. It is a space that increases biodiversity using native species plants, protects and nurtures wildlife, supports and protects healthy soil, increases carbon capture and uses less water – as well as being a beautiful addition for the whole ZIS community.

ZIS Lower School covering soil around the edge of her plant in the Food Forest
Group of ZIS Grade 5 students checking the aroma of a plant
ZIS Lower School boy adding his plant to the food forest
Lower School girl digging in the soil with a small pick
Two Lower School girls untangling the roots of their plants for the food forest
Early Childhood girl pressing soil down around her plant
Group of Grade 2 students in a group watching how to work with plants
Two Early childhood students crouching down next to their plants in the food forest
Two Early Childhood students looking at a work on a garden tool, one laughing and pointing