planting mangoes

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Seal of the United States Department of Agriculture

In schools it is rarely the case that students get, from Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers, the opportunity to do meaningful work. Make work and fake work dominate classrooms in schools that are usually not integrated with their communities in any real way. In one Indonesian school, that is not the case.

INDONESIA: Network Turns Teachers Into Environment Advocates - IPS ipsnews.net:

"A joint research by scientists from the Centre for International Forestry Research in Bogor, West Java, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service revealed that mangroves in the Indian and Pacific Oceans store more carbon than previously recognised, underscoring calls for mangrove protection in order to play a key role in mitigating climate change. 

According to the research published in the monthly multi-disciplinary journal Nature Geoscience in April, much of that carbon is stored in the ground below the mangrove forests, which account for merely 0.7 percent of tropical forest area. The study also suggested that the destruction and degradation of mangrove reserves could produce 10 percent of the world’s total deforestation emissions. 

Ekowanto vowed to teach some 1,200 students in his school how to grow mangroves. 'I have collected mangrove seeds and this coming academic year, my colleagues and I will teach our students to germinate the seeds in the school compound and plant them later in destroyed mangrove sites in Labuan district, Pandeglang regency,' he said. The new school year starts in mid-July."