Bobby's Introduces Organic Dairy Products

This week Bobby's, the Middle and High School cafeteria began offering organic dairy products for the first time. This first for ISB is the result of a lot of hard work and planning to ensure quality, safe products.

As you probably know (but we'll summarize anyway), organic dairy products come from cow that have not received hormones, antibiotics or genetically modified food. All of the former are used to maximize milk production but have side-effects on animal health. Traces are also frequently found in the dairy products humans consume and thereby impact the health and well-being of consumers. Organic ensures you get milk, not milk with hormones and prescription antibiotics.

This step not only helps ISB students and faculty, but it also gives a boost to the production of organic dairy foods in Thailand. This is currently a small market and an outlet like ISB encourages other farmers to switch to sustainable methods of production.

Thanks to Bobby and all the people who worked to make this happen.

TOP 12 REASONS TO GO ORGANIC

1. It's healthy. Organic food tends to contain higher levels of vitamin C, cancer-fighting antioxidants, and essential minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron and chromium. It is safe, nutritious, unadulterated food.
2. Organic food doesn't contain food additives that can cause health problems such as heart disease, osteoporosis,migraines and hyperactivity.
3. 3. It avoids pesticides. More than 400 chemical pesticides are routinely used in conventional farming and residues are often present in non-organic food.
4. It is environmentally friendly and doesn’t pollute our fresh water with runoff from pesticides.
5. It is produced without GMOs or drugs to the animals
6. It is against animal cruelty. Animals live on fields not in cages.
7. It is produced without antibiotics and growth-promoting drugs
8. It reduces dependence on non-renewable resources
9. There has not been a case of BSE (Mad Cow Disease) in any herd that has been in full organic management since before 1985.
10.It relies on a modern and scientific understanding of ecology and soil science, while also depending on traditional methods of crop rotations to ensure fertility and weed and pest control
11.It's good for wildlife and the environment. Organic farming is better for wildlife, causes lower pollution from sprays, produces less carbon dioxide - the main global warming gas -and less dangerous wastes.
12.It's flavorful. Many people prefer organic food because they say it tastes better.

Elementary Student Council

The Elementary School has a new student council organized into action groups. Grade 5 students identified four key areas for action, and the environment (Green Panthers) was front and centre. In their first two meetings, the new elementary Green Panthers came up with a flurry of proposals and will be working on several issues related to Halloween in Nichada to start.

Future projects will include energy and water conservation measures at ISB and ways to reduce waste in the elementary school.

To echo the sentiments of the student council, please take a look at the following poem from Nadya Rauch, a grade 2 student.

A Tree is Nice

A tree is nice because it seems to
Keep you company when you’re alone.
It gives you a better view, too,
So you can see all of the other beautiful trees.
Trees are nice to play on.
Trees give you lots of juicy fruits.
In the fall, play with all of its colorful leaves!
On a hot summer day, stop at a tree and have a picnic.

Water it each day.

A tree is nice because it gives all of it’s beauty just to you and all of it’s beautiful colors just to you.
Trees are your friend, you see, all in your backyard just for you.
All of its beauty into your life!
All of your care in your tree.
If you listen into the wind you will hear your tree say
Thank you!

Munch and Music

The ISB Student Council has taken one more step in the green direction by voting not to use disposable plates, cups or cutlery for their annual Munch and Music event. The event, a two hour showcase for student music and dance, is a huge fundraising opportunity for the many student organizations at ISB. Students recognized that last year's event generated a lot of waste from disposable plates and cups and decided to take action this year.

The Green Panthers' decision to purchase a huge set of utensils and plates for school events is paying off. The plates have been used at school events already and are reserved for Munch and Music and the International Food Fair. The reduced waste benefits us all (as does the reduced aggravation from trying to eat with plastic knives and forks).

Thanks to Student Council for making this commitment.

Green Panther Newsdesk

Green Panther News Desk

ISB gets greener and greener every week. Some highlights of recent green news stories…

Partnership Opportunity for ISB and the Bill Clinton Foundation
The Bill Clinton Foundation recently approached ISB and several other Bangkok schools about a potential partnership with very green overtones. While the full details of the proposal will be revealed at a special meeting on 16 October, early information is that the Foundation will fully fund an environmental retrofit of the entire school (lighting, cooling, insulation etc.). Repayment of these upfront costs will be through savings from the school’s reduced consumption of energy.

More details will follow next week’s meeting. Keep your fingers crossed.

Grade 2 Goes Organic

This year, as part of their study of plants in Science, the Grade 2 students at ISB are growing vegetables in organic gardens. Over a dozen small plots line the jogging path near the fence on the far side of the parking lot. Student teams planted carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, spinach and other vegetables in the hopes that before our December holiday, their classes will be able to harvest vegetables and share a salad they have grown themselves.

Not only will students gain valuable information about plants as they follow their crops from seed to table, but they will also reap the rewards that come to those who take time to care for the earth that sustains us.

In our community, much of the food our children see is either commercially prepared, or packaged in cardboard and plastic. It is easy to forget that our food comes not from
Villa, but from the ground. Just a few generations ago, a majority of earth's inhabitants nourished themselves, at least in part, with food they had grown themselves or animals they raised for that purpose. Now that nearly half of the planet’s inhabitants live in cities, a growing number of children cannot identify the origins of the food they eat because their food is wrapped in plastic on a Styrofoam
tray, vacuum-sealed, or boxed with a colorful label. In order to combat this trend, a recent article on nutrition in the New York Times Magazine gave this simple advice for good health: if your grandparents didn’t eat, you probably shouldn’t either. You know that rules out Pringles.

We can only take better care of our earth if we learn about it - what it needs, how it works, and how to carefully manage what it has to offer. Congratulations to Grade 2 for taking this concrete step. Work the garden, enjoy the food.

Visitors are welcome to view the gardens, and volunteer gardeners are
encouraged to ask the second grade teachers how they can help. Contact Caryn Macky, magicrat@loxinfo.co.th, for more information about the gardens or Kerry Dyke, kerryd@isb.ac.th, for ways you can support earth care at ISB.


Green Panther Birth Announcement

The Elementary Green Panthers are born! The newly established elementary student council is organized into four action groups and the Green Panthers were front and centre. Their first meeting is on the 25th. You will definitely hear more.

No More Cup Waste

Students from our MS Environmental Stewardship class has made another step forward in "greening" up our campus. The Life in the Middle student news blog has posted a letter detailing the plan to get rid of all the disposable plastic cups that are used for drinks and then thrown away. They will be replaced by REUSABLE plastic cups that can be washed and brought back out the next day.

If we want our school to be more environmentally friendly, then we are going to have to make some serious changes in the actions that we take part in. This is the reason why we are going to change the disposable cups in the cafeteria into reusable cups. This is much more environmentally friendly because it will drastically cut down on our daily waste. However, once we have the new cups we need your help to make this work. Please do not take the cups home for yourself and make sure they are returned to the cafeteria staff. We hope you support our cause.

Well done to the students and we are looking forward to more initiatives like this one!

ISB Varsity Boys Soccer Team goes Carbon Free

Traveling is a part of any sports team and at ISB we sometimes go even a little further. The soccer team will travel to Singapore and KL for matches this season. It would be better for the environment if we didn’t go on these flights at all, however, the teams would not be so happy about that. Therefore, the team did the next best thing; they took steps to offset their carbon emissions for these flights. Working with the PATT foundation they planted trees to soak up and store that carbon. No one is saying this is the perfect solution, but if you are going to take that flight anyway, then at least this helps.

Comments from Coach Rob Heath were:

"The PATT staff did a wonderful job facilitating a perfect win-win scenario for the International School Bangkok Boys Soccer team last Saturday. To offset the carbon we will be emitting on our flights to Tournaments in Singapore and KL, each player paid 400 baht towards the cost of planting 55 trees at the Sri Nakorn Kuan Khan Park. We had a great day out in a beautiful green space very close to the city centre, and we all felt like we had done a little towards making our air cleaner and the world greener. It was great to get our hands dirty and to feel a personal relationship with the young trees as we carefully placed them in the holes and filled in the soil around them."

You can also offset your own flights, your car or yourself if you like. Just visit the PATT site: http://www.plant-a-tree-today.org for more information.

If you were in charge, what would you do?

So you think it is easy saving the world.

Let’s see how you do running your own city. Chevron has a site about the environment and it has a very cool game that let’s you run the city’s energy. Every decision you make affects the environment and the economy. Can you help your city prosper while keeping it green? Give it a shot and see how you do. What is your best score?