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.
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.
