News

Greening Costa Rica mountain schools

20.06.2016

For several years the Hotel Villa Blanca management office, which also owns the José Miguel Alfaro Biological Research Centre situated on the hotel property in the Los Angeles district of San Ramon, which is located in the mountains west of the Central Valley of Costa Rica, has been working with children in three schools near the hotel. El Alto Villegas, La Balsa and Bajo Zúñiga students, at all levels, are taught about ecological and environmental issues.

The Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) and the Ministry of Public Education (MEP) of Costa Rica are part of this environmental education initiative. Their work has highlighted the importance of mountains, especially cloud forests as water resources, biodiversity and ecosystem services. Their characteristics, fauna, flora, etc. are highlighted. In addition, a field trip is taken at the end of a cycle of three visits to each school, which includes a visit to the José Miguel Alfaro Research Centre, completing the tour with a tour of the trails in the forest conservation áreas that the hotel has, so that visitors and tourists can appreciate the landscape and biodiversity of the place.

Given the occurrences of climate variability and climate change in Costa Rica and the fact that the national government has proposed the unilateral goal of neutralizing greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2021, the National Meteorological Institute (NMI), through an alliance with Hotel Villa Blanca, has taken advantage of the collaboration they have with the schools, in order to strengthen the children’s knowledge of issues related to climate change and mountains, striving toward a future change in attitude of the children in these schools as well as youth and adults in the area, concerning the importance of preservation and care of the mountains.

To this end, a project was carried out last year with these schools to work towards neutralizing emissions. The project was funded by the Friends of Japan (ACEAJA), with an amount of USD 1 000.

Project objective:
To design a Plan of Action with the students of the schools in Alto Villegas, La Balsa, Bajo Zuniga and the Hotel Villa Blanca management to reduce and offset the emissions generated by activities related to the energy and wastewater in order to contribute to the neutralization of emissions in the country and improve the environmental quality of the region and protect our mountains.

Specific objective:
To strengthen the capacities of the personnel responsible for Environmental Education at the Hotel Villa Blanca as well as the teachers and children of these schools on the subject of climate variability and climate change.

The methodology is developed under the following components:

Component 1: Capacity development
Training was provided to both teachers and Hotel Villa Blanca staff, so they can continue on their own to quantify emissions.

Two workshops were held with the students, who were accompanied by teachers. Among the topics of the lectures were: "How to help reduce my carbon footprint?"; "Climate change (concepts, impacts on biodiversity, health, agriculture and water sectors)"; "Greenhouse gases and their composition in the atmosphere and impacts on the Hydrological Cycle."

Preparation of the Plan of Action, Final Report and project end. (First phase).

Officials of the Department of Environmental Education and Research Section of the Hotel Villa Blanca coordinated with the Regional Director of the Ministry of Education (MEP), and the teachers of the schools of Alto Villegas, La Balsa and Bajo Zuniga, so that the children could attend the lectures and workshops. In turn, they facilitated the set up of the Meeting Centre and José Miguel Alfaro Research Centre as the space for the lectures and workshops.

Component 2: Emission measurements
The IMN (MINAE) trained teachers and staff of Villa Blanca in data collection (metric) methodology and calculating GHG emissions. It also offered technical expertise to develop the content of the lectures and workshops, which were developed in collaboration with Villa Blanca staff.

As the project is short term (four months) and to realize the measurement of GHG emissions, only two of the categories were taken into account, which are included in the National Policy for Mitigation: Energy and Wastewater System.

A baseline was established by taking as the year of reference from January 2014 to December 2014. For measurement emission factors published by the NMI in 2015 were taken and the conversions used for the National Inventories. Manuals, prepared by the Ecological Blue Flag Programme called "Award Procedures Manual Educational Centres", were also consulted.

The amount of emissions generated by schools was quantified. For Energy, the measurements taken were based on information from the schools’ electricity consumption; and for Wastewater System, teachers were asked information on the disposal of wastewater, if done by septic tank and/or cesspool. They were also asked how many children were in each group, the number of days and hours children spend in school.

As for greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, different actions were realized to help reduce carbon emissions generated in the schools due to the use and operation of the infrastructure, including the separation of solid waste, energy and water efficiency campaigns, these actions are already being developed in other schools in the country as part of the carbon footprint measurement efforts, to which other initiatives can be added, such as keeping track of the actions and that can be accounted for in the GHG reduction in each school. Light bulbs were also checked and replaced, where necessary, with greater efficiency bulbs; in one of the schools one of the water fixtures was replaced with a digital control to avoid wasting water. The possibility of improving the sewage management and other activities raised in the Plan of Action was analyzed in light of interaction with teachers and children.

In order to go forward in reducing emissions, the school teachers coordinated with parental support tree planting activities as well as monitoring for at least two years to review whether emissions are reduced and continue to collect the information needed to proceed with the measurement of GHGs. The results to date have been satisfactory, mainly because the three schools have interacted with one another in this important project.

As a result of the project, the school environments and nearby residents were improved, the capacities of the children, teachers and Hotel White Villa staff were strengthened.

See the activities in this video

News by Magda Campos Barrantes, Instituto Meteorológico Nacional, Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía