Arbor School’s sco-education: Empowering sustainable future in Dubai

The Arbor School, Dubai transcends the books and the classrooms in education, introducing the knowledge, empathy, action and purpose. With head, heart, hands and spirit approach, Arbor builds academic excellence with the concept that each young person has something to offer to the environment.

Environmentalism allows students to consider the issue of sustainability with intellectual seriousness. Local ecosystems experiences, from field trips to Al Qudra lakes to oyster reef restoration along the Gulf coast, expose them to responsibility and compassion. Through ecoliteracy courses and collaborative projects on these experiences, students understand that the concept of interdependence is no longer an abstract theory but a lived reality which makes them appreciate all parts of natural systems.

Hand-on projects make the learning act. Students are able to plant, harvest and eat food produced by school gardens and biodomes, live farm-to-fork. Students are involved in conservation projects such as the Dubai Oysters Project, recycling shell to create a new reef system. Even minor projects, such as school bus testing of biodiesel, educate that true change starts with every-day choices.

There are frequent observances of the Arbor spirit so that all learned becomes meaningful. There is ecological awareness that is not abstract but a daily practice. Activities in class connect what is taught there to larger issues of accountability, like writing down what they have done after a visit to a mangrove or debating ethical questions of resource use during assembly times.

By uniting head, heart, hands and spirit, Arbor prepares its students to have faith in themselves. Young Arborists learn, are positive thinkers, empathetic and self-assured to build a sustainable world for Dubai, the UAE and globally.