• Together with pupils from Aachen's 4th comprehensive school, trainees from Aachener Stadtbetrieb have unsealed and planted parts of the schoolyard.
• The project is part of the students' many ideas and measures for the ecological enhancement of the school grounds.
• Sustainability projects such as this one are now a fixed part of the Aachen municipal company's training plan.

The schoolyard of Aachen's 4th comprehensive school has become greener, more beautiful and also more sustainable. And this is mainly thanks to trainees from Aachen's municipal services and pupils from the school, who have been working for many years to improve the ecological value of the school grounds. After municipal trainees from the road construction department had professionally unsealed an area, trainees from the gardening and landscaping department were able to plant the areas together with pupils who take part in the school's wide range of courses on school greening, sustainability and horticulture. The project was implemented in cooperation with the municipal school program "ACtive for Future" in the Department of Climate and Environment, the Department of Youth and Schools, Aachener Stadtbetrieb and the municipal building management. The current unsealing and planting campaign is one of many projects of the 4th Aachen comprehensive school as part of the school greening project "Schulen, BÄUMT Euch auf!", for which the school won a prize from the "green cool schools" initiative (www.greencoolschools.eu) in 2024, which is supported by EU funds.

The school-wide greening process began with the "Global Goals Star March Aachen Schools" in 2024. On behalf of the 4th Aachen comprehensive school, spokespersons from the student council presented the demand for more school greening to former mayor Sibylle Keupen. The comprehensive school is also one of the signatories of the Climate City Contract. The initiatives at the school range from small measures such as repairing a raised bed and saving potted flowers to appropriate teaching content and a plan to unseal the schoolyard and implement it. Although Léon André Prümper and Nele Mia Rychter from the student council did not do any digging themselves, they are co-initiators of the Global Goals campaigns and helped to present the school's demands to the town hall at the time: "We need to avoid having large heat islands in the city. In addition, more greenery in the school environment also ensures more peace and quiet in the sometimes stressful school day," Prümper is convinced. Heiko Thomas, Aachen City Councillor for Climate and Environment, City Operations and Buildings, agrees with the pupil: "We need to work on our school playgrounds. More greenery around schools also helps to cool them down on hot days and improves the overall quality of life in the city."

Greening outdoor areas for a better climate in the classroom
Greening outdoor areas has also been proven to cool down classrooms on hot days, says Stephan Ganser, head of the "Maintenance of Municipal Buildings" department at Facility Management: "We now have a new awareness of the problem in schools and daycare centers. Where we accommodate vulnerable groups, we have to do something about overheating." Stefan Fagot, Head of Schools in the city's Youth and Schools department, praised the 4th comprehensive school: "It's no coincidence that we're at this school of all places and presenting a project like this." The school community set out very early on to implement such improvements in everyday school life.

Part of the training at the municipal company
But it is not only the school that benefits from the current unsealing and the "ACtive for Future" support: "We have firmly incorporated the topic of 'sustainability' into the training curriculum," explains Indra Balsam, Operations Manager of the Aachen municipal company. Such schoolyard greening in cooperation with the municipal school program is thus an important building block in the training. "Construction sites like this are a lot of fun and it makes the city a bit greener," says Fabian Vermeeren, 3rd year gardener apprentice specializing in gardening and landscaping at Aachener Stadtbetrieb. His colleague from the 3rd year of the apprenticeship, Noah Müller, also thinks the contact and cooperation with the students is good: "Everyone really benefits from it."

Preliminary work from April
On April 1 of this year, there was a kick-off meeting for the project with the 4th Aachen Comprehensive School - including Martin Blech, teacher at the 4th Aachen Comprehensive School and "Global Goals" coordinator, and André Fischer, specialist in multi-professional teams at the school - as well as experts and trainers from the municipal company. The unsealing work was then started in mid-July by the road construction trainees: Together with the two trainees Yannick Esser and Saadeldin Alkhaleed from the road construction and road maintenance departments, an asphalted area of the school playground was professionally unsealed. The asphalt surface was cut into, removed and the existing substructure excavated to prepare the area for subsequent planting. The unsealed area comprises two sections with a total size of around 20 square meters.

Then it was the turn of the "gardeners": an area was first edged with steel strip, filled with planting substrate and planted with a hornbeam hedge. At the end of October, a slope was planted in front of the school grounds with 13 different shrubs, including dog rose, common snowball, forsythia and ornamental currants. Two trainees from the first and second year of training were involved in the project, which was managed and practically implemented by the two third-year trainees: Noah Müller and Fabian Vermeeren implemented it together with pupils* from the school's garden workshops. Now the last trees have been planted by Marie Dörflinger and Paul Pyls, both from the 4th comprehensive school.

Support from "ACtive for Future"
The "ACtive for Future" school program supports Aachen schools on their way to anchoring sustainability in everyday school life. The program supports schools in making everyday school life more environmentally friendly, fairer and more future-oriented. Whether it's energy saving, waste avoidance or more greenery in the schoolyard - it brings ideas, tips and financial support directly to the schools. Schoolyard greening projects play a central role there: 20 Aachen schools have already implemented smaller projects to upgrade their school grounds as part of "ACtive for Future" since 2022. Together with those responsible from the Youth and Schools Department, the municipal building management and Aachen's municipal services, the "ACtive for Future" team selected the 4th Aachen Comprehensive School as a pilot school for the implementation of the "Sustainability" education project. This school has been committed to the ecological upgrading of the school grounds for many years - among other things with daily gardening workshops, the "BE-greifen" teaching program, in which young people are specially prepared for gardening professions or a school greening council.