Dame Julia Morton-Marr, part of the group PeaceWomen Across the Globe that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, visited the ULS on October 18, 2010 to rededicate the school’s Peace Garden and help inaugurate a new Peace Path. As one of 1000 PeaceWomen, Julia Morton-Marr teaches children how to be citizens of the world through curricula based on the idea that peace, justice, and the environment cannot be taught separately. Adopted by 3,500 schools in 34 countries, the curricula include an array of topics from conflict resolution and cultural understanding, to geography and performing arts, all of which are based on a set of four pillars: human sustainability; ecological integrity; social peace; and individual rights and responsibilities. ULS is honored to be one of the schools involved in the Hawai‘i School Peace Gardens community, part of Dame Morton-Marr’s International School Peace Gardens.
ULS became part of the International Peace Garden Program two years ago with the dedication of its first Peace Garden. The Peace Path, which has grown out of the many stewardship and sustainability initiatives going on in the school, is designed to physically and spiritually connect the elementary school’s learning landscape garden with the secondary school’s courtyard garden.
Adopt-a Walkway Project
In conjunction with Dame Morton-Marr’s visit and the joining of the two gardens, the second and third graders led the way in getting the whole school involved in taking care of their school. They had formed an “Earth Squad” two years ago that took on the task of keeping their campus clean as one of their first projects. This year they launched the Adopt a Walkway program for all students in grades K–12. An all-school workday in October let the school start the year with a clean campus, and each grade level K through twelve has taken responsibility for an area of the campus that they will maintain and beautify throughout the year.