Imagine waking up each morning in a bamboo bedroom and heading to class across a bamboo bridge to read Salinger in a bamboo classroom. Students at the Green School, an innovative new school in Indonesia, do just that. At the Green School in Bali, every one of the 75 buildings are made from a local grass called alang-alang, bamboo, and traditional mud walls. Micro-hydro power, solar power and bio-diesel are responsible for cooling the buildings.
But the green attitude doesn’t stop with the facilities. Founders Cynthia and John Hardy (known for his Balinese-inspired jewelry) integrate their green-led values into the curriculum. International students, ranging from preschool level to 10th grade take traditional classes, and can also choose from courses in gourmet chocolate production, organic farming, and new methods of sustainable building with bamboo. The students also cultivate an organic garden—the complex uses an organic permaculture system that works in cohesion with the natural environment—that produces fruits, vegetables, herbs and even chocolate.
The school’s location and environment make it an idyllic and absurdly unique place to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. The Hardys hope that this balance between curriculum covering conventional subjects and hands-on interaction with the natural environment will transform the students into “responsible global citizens.”
Photo Credit: Lindsay Clinton
