Jurong-Pioneer Junior College wins three awards at School Green Awards 2022

Jurong-Pioneer Junior College took home awards in all of the top three categories of the School Green Awards (SGA) 2022 held on Friday (Nov 18).

An annual flagship outreach programme by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC), SGA aims to empower staff and students into being innovative and responsible advocates of the environment. 

In its 21st edition this year, SGA saw 300 entries from 286 schools including pre-schools, primary schools, secondary schools, and Institutes of Higher Learning. 

This year’s SGA revolves around the theme of Future Change Makers – Saving Tomorrow with Changes Today. 

The schools were challenged to align their projects with the five pillars of the Singapore Green Plan 2030 which includes, City in Nature, Energy Reset, Green Economy, Resilient Future and Sustainable Living.

They were also required to demonstrate their creativity and problem-solving skills and provide different solutions to make Singapore a greener society. 

Projects submitted for the SGA were judged via three categories. 

The Outstanding Environmental Project Award recognises the most innovative environmental projects while the Best 3R Award is awarded to top projects that reinforce practices and habits of the 3RS (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle). 

Finally, the Vanda Miss Joaquim Sustained Achievement Award is given to honour schools that have achieved an overall score of more than 90 per cent during the project assessment, for the third year in a row.

Initiatives by the participating schools were also assessed based on three categories – their energy, water and paper consumption, with schools decreasing their carbon emissions by an average of 1,162 tonnes since 2018. This is a 1.2 per cent reduction year-on-year. 

Jurong-Pioneer Junior College (JPJC) clinched all three prizes from their sustained environmental project, the JP Green Wave Movement 2022. 

JPJC’s JP Green Wave Movement 2022 consists of four sub-projects. The first, JP Food Stories showcased how the team piloted a vertical hydroponics set-up on campus and learnt how to monitor them with Internet of Things (IoT). 

In their second sub-project, 19 students participated in the SIA x SUTD Upcycling Challenge to raise awareness on waste management as part of the Project Work Innovation Programme. 

They also carried out an outreach programme as their third project where they conducted the Community Garden & Terrarium Workshop for elderly residents. 

Finally, the team executed Recycling Right!, where students used creative measures to place transparent recycling bins at high-traffic areas around the campus, which increased recycling significantly.

As a whole, their project addressed three out of five of the Green Plan Pillars – City in Nature, Sustainability Living, and Resilient Future. This allowed them to pass the assessments and audits and clinch all three awards. 

SEC executive director Ms Jen Teo said: “It is very inspiring to see our future generation filled with passion and creativity to drive the change for a more sustainable and liveable society. 

“We cannot emphasise enough how Singapore’s journey towards net zero by 2050 will require commitment from all layers of society, and today’s youths certainly have a special role to play.”