Forming Children’s Character to Love the Environment Through Waste Management Activities

Abstract

Character building is generally carried out in schools, with the teacher as the model. This character building will be more intensive when schools achieve the Adiwiyata School predicate. Adiwiyata is a sign that the school's teachers and students have environmentally friendly habits. One of the activities that show love for the environment is processing waste in an environmentally friendly manner. There is a tendency for the character building to loosen up when the process of obtaining the Adiwiyata predicate is completed. However, character education should not stop. To overcome this, parents should also adopt the habit of processing waste in an environmentally friendly manner (making compost). If parents can do that (make compost) sustainedly, then children will be trained to behave in a commendable manner, i.e being responsible, not delaying on tasks (not procrastination), and being diligent and thrifty. Responsible behavior arises because children learn to manage their own waste. Economical behavior emerges so that less waste is processed. Diligent behavior occurs because composting must be carried out continuously since humans produce waste every day. Procrastination does not occur because waste must be processed immediately. If it is too late, the garbage will be surrounded by maggots. The existence of maggots usually will reduce the motivation to process waste, which can stop the character education