The Finnish Association for Environmental Education, the Eco-Schools coordinating organisation in Finland, had the honour to host Sérgio Santos and FEE president Jan Eriksen from 21 to 23 September. Since our organisation is not a member of FEE, this was an important opportunity for us to learn more about FEE and to make our work known. As a result of intense and constructive debates, we received important feed-back, advice and support on how to develop the program further.
Sérgio and Jan also met some representatives of the Ministry of Education, demonstrating the international character and potential of the programme. The Finnish government is presently building the national strategy on Sustainable Development promotion to all sectors of the society, and the specific policy on Education for Sustainable Development is now underway. Thus, this meeting was tactically important to us, and we are very pleased having had that support from FEE and the Eco-Schools International Coordination.
And, of course, Jan and Sérgio had to visit some Eco-Schools. Lauttasaari Comprehensive School in Helsinki is a new Eco-School, having attained the green flag once so far, but has already reached great results in their waste project. Kevatkumpu Comprehensive School in Porvoo, a small town on the South coast, has been doing impressive work for many years.

(October 2005)

47 new Green Flags in Finland

   
47 schools and nurseries received green flags in the Finnish Eco-Schools ceremony in Turku, May 16^th. 15 of them received the flag for the first time. In Finland participants can wave the flag for 18 months after which they have to apply for it again. At the moment there are 82 awarded schools and nurseries in Finland.
   
Greetings from Ketolanperä school
One of the schools awarded in May 2003 is Ketolanperä primary schools from Kempele. Teacher Marjukka Riihimäki sends regards for all Eco-School participants:
   
Our themes are:
- Reducing the amount of the waste by recycling and sorting out.
- Taking good care of the environment. We’ll keep our habitat green, pleasant and cosy (by plants, blooms, rubbish bins, paintings etc.).
In addition each class has got its own everyday, environment-friendly task such as feeding birds in winter, saving energy, taking care of worm compost. Our pupils are from 6 to 12 years old and our environmental committee is called ECOTROLLS.
Best wishes from Marjukka Riihimäki (mriihima@louhi.kempele.fi)
   
More information about Eco-Schools in Finland:
www.sykse.net/vihrealippu

   
SYKLI Environmental School of Finland organizes a Grundtvig / Comenius course on "Environmental Management System of an Educational Establishment". We would like to inform you that there is still the possibility to participate the course. The course will be held in Riihimäki, Finland on 10^th to 16^th March 2003. The course objectives are:
* to raise participants' awareness of sustainable development and environmental management
* to provide a step by step model and a toolkit to help an educational establishment to construct the environmental management system
* to give new ideas, benchmarking
* case studies: sustainable development in educational establishments (examples from Finland and other European countries)
* deliver information on EU-projects related to sustainable development and educational establishments
   
More information on the course programme is available at Cimo's Grundtvig/Comenius course database (with Course reference number FI-014-01-2002) at http://comcdb.programkontoret.se/CourseManagement/ASP/CourseSearch.asp
Course fee: The Grundtvig / Comenius programme is a part of EU's Socrates programme which supports international educational exchange of information. The course is supported by the G/C -programme and is free of charge for the participants. Ask further information on funding from the organization coordinating Socrates programme in your country. The last application date for the course is February 1^st 2003.
   
SYKLI Environmental School of Finland is a new special vocational training institute, which started its operation on the 1st September 2002 at Riihimäki, a town 60 km north of Helsinki. SYKLI continues Hyvinkää-Riihimäki Vocational Adult Education Centre's (HRVAEC) 10 years long tradition of environmental training and projects. Some of SYKLI's references are:
* Environmental management system for public organisations - training courses with a total of 150 participants from the personnel of municipalities and educational establishments (1997 - 1999)
* Sustainable development in educational establishment - training courses for teachers and other personnel of educational establishments all around Finland with a total of 150 participants (1999 - 2002)
* Environmental training courses for the personnel of National Force of Defence, total of 100 participants (1999 - 2002)
   
For further information and for pre-registration please contact:
SYKLI Environmental School of Finland, Project Assistant, Tiina Kuosari
tel. +358 19 764 2022   email: tiina.kuosari@sykli.net   web: www.sykli.net

(January 2003)

Awarding Ceremony in Finland

   
36 schools and kindergartens celebrated their green flags in the Finnish awarding ceremony on May 30^th. The ceremony started with a speech from guest of honour, Mr Pentti Arajärvi, husband of the President. Two schools made a short presentation of their Eco-Schools projects. ”Aunt Green” demonstrated her tree-exercise - and audience followed her. Finally the flags were given by Mr Arajävi and “Aunt Green”.
   
The 36 new flags make the total amount of green flags in Finland to 79. Green flags fly now all around Finland. There are a total of 120 schools and kindergartens participating in Finland. The awarding ceremony took place in the largest school participating in the programme: this school has 1300 pupils. They have proven wrong the idea that Eco-Schools is suitable only for smaller schools!

(June 2002)

18 new flags in Finland!

   
In the beginning of December the National Eco-Schools committee in Finland awarded 18 participants Eco-Schools. At the moment there are 61 awarded schools in Finland. It is also possible to get awarded in May. The official awarding ceremony will be in May and all the awarded from December will be invited as well.
   
Chairman of the National committee, Sanna Koskinen, thinks that Eco-Schools’ projects are better every year. Participants have come up with several new innovations how to activate pupils. For example in Ristikallio school pupils have weekly Eco-Schools responsibilities. The pupils wear a green sign in their sleeve to show that they take care of the waste this week. Among the Eco-Schools-projects there were also several good examples about making the nearby environment cleaner and nicer. In one school pupils had planned again the schoolyard according to their own wishes. One preschool with children under 6 years old has cleaned up a nearby forest and made it a nice hiking and playing area.

(December 2001)