Middle School students anticipate Choice Day with much excitement. For a whole day, all Middle School students were free to choose among a wide range of different activities - each of them offering them an opportunity to do something out of the ordinary. Many of this year’s activities focused on sustainability.

 

The Sustainability Club is very active this year. Their efforts and vision are also complemented by 20 of our teachers having been to the Sustainability Compass Training earlier last year. With sustainability at the forefront of this year’s Choice Day, all activities followed the themes of Nature, Economy, Society and Wellbeing. Among many examples were going on nature walks, learning about doughnut economics, creating recipes for natural skin care, mending old clothes and shoes at the repair café, social justice poster-making, learning about AI and writing, trying out different sports, and yoga, and much more.

 

In the past student-led Middle School assemblies, sustainability has been addressed regularly as well. Different topics have been in the spotlight each time and have been expanded on at Choice Day. For example, learning about fast fashion at the assembly, inspired the organization of the repair café.

 

For some students, some sustainability concepts were rather new, but still insightful: “Well, there weren't any doughnuts in the Doughnut Economics activity. But I did learn a lot, and found it very interesting.” Doughnut Economics suggests a way of transforming our economy; set on regenerative and distributive dynamics that are not set on policies and institutions.

 

With a growing concern for the health of our planet, this year’s Choice Day was also about transforming feelings of worry and stress into taking action. By seeing and experiencing the potential of coming together and creating solutions, we become empowered and capable of becoming active players in the betterment of our world.