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Earth Day is fast approaching and as educators, it is important that this is a moment that is recognized. It is important that schools and teachers take time to educate students about earth day and the importance of caring for the earth. The @steemiteducation homework for this week centers around Earth Day and the activities we do in our classroom to teach about the importance of caring for the earth and our environment. I love that we have Earth Day to make people stop and take a moment to remember and create discussion around the issue. However, I personally think that we have a responsibility to make this a topic that is discussed throughout the year.
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I started teaching at my current school about ten years ago. At that time, there were no major initiatives in place around environmental education or conservation in place. At that same time the province of Ontario, where I live, was beginning to put initiatives in place to promote better education in this area. I learned about a program that had just started called Ontario EcoSchools. This is a program that was created by the Toronto District School Board in an effort to have every school become certified as a “green” school. This expanded to a mission that would turn into a goal to have all Ontario schools become certified.
Vision: Every School an EcoSchool!
From individual behaviours to collective impact, all members of school communities are empowered with the knowledge, skills, perspectives, and desire to act as environmentally responsible citizens.
Mission
Our mission is to nurture environmental leaders, reduce the ecological impact of schools, and build environmentally responsible school communities. To do this we:
- Certify K-12 schools in environmental learning and action.
- Create a vibrant network of schools, school boards and community partners.
- Build strong EcoTeams with training sessions and tools.
- Embed ecological literacy into the curriculum and daily practices.
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I approached my principal at the time about starting up this initiative at our school. She thought it was a great idea and so I set to putting together an EcoTeam and getting the ball rolling. Our goal for our first year was to become a Silver level certified school. Basically, you can achieve different levels of certification based on the number of things you are able to achieve at your school. The first step was to put together an EcoTeam consisting of a few teachers, an admin representative and students. We were even able to get our custodian on board which gave us brownie point towards our certification.
Once we had a team in place we set to making goals and creating activities and initiative within our school. There were so many wonderful ideas that came out of our brainstorming meetings. The students and teachers involved were very eager to get these different activities started and see some of the changes that could be made in our school. Our big goals were to reduce the amount of waste coming from our school, increase students awareness about “green” initiatives and make our school a certified EcoSchool for years to come. We didn’t just want this to be a one year deal. Our goal was for this to become something our school strived to do each and every year. As your certification only lasts for one year, our school would have to recertify each year.
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The biggest goal we wanted to achieve success in was getting more education about environmental conservation is our classrooms. We put out a call to teachers to share any lesson plans or resources they have been using in their classes to teach about these topics. We also put together a team of 2 teachers to go searching for relevant lessons and resources online. The results were fantastic. We were able to put together a bank of resources for all teachers in our school to use. This was a great addition to our certification application as we were able to show that there was a school-wide effort to incorporate more eco studies into our classrooms.
The students on the EcoTeam felt that it was important that we were recycling as a school. This was a no-brainer. This required putting together a proposal and submitting it to the principal. The big concern was that the school would have to go out and purchase new recycling bins for all of our classes. The students also wanted to start composting. The students were very helpful in putting together the proposal and were very excited when it was accepted. The only changes that had to be made were the timing of implementation. The purchases would need to take place over two years. The school would purchase all the recycling bins for the classrooms in year one and the compost project could start in year two. The nice perk to this compromise was that we were already a step ahead for next years certification.
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There were many school-based activities that the team came up with. These were things that could happen throughout the year and be repeated year after year to create a consistent effort to be a “green” school. To promote awareness the team would do occasional announcements about different energy conservation ideas. There would be poster contests and conservation posters would be put up throughout the school. Things like turning the water off while brushing your teeth or making sure to turn off the lights when leaving a room and much more. We also started having Eco assemblies a few times a year. The team could report our successes and promote new ideas at these.
The EcoTeam wanted to reduce the school's carbon footprint. We started a litterless lunch program where every Wednesday students were encouraged to use only Tupperware containers or reusable packages in their lunches. This was an effort to reduce the amount of garbage that was being produced by the school Essentially, that goal was to teach students and families to reduce the amount of packaging and waste that was going into lunches. The litterless lunches were combined with boomerang lunches. Boomerang lunches would happen once every two weeks. Students were again encouraged to bring a litterless lunch but on these days they would have to take any garbage they brought in their lunches back home. The goal was to raise awareness about the amount of garbage that comes to school through student lunches.
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There were also efforts made to reduce the amount of photocopying and laminating done in the school as well. It was a very successful first year and we succeeded in our goal to become a Silver Certified EcoSchool. This is an achievement that the school has been able to maintain to this day and in fact, we are on our way to potentially reaching the gold level. There was one project that we have been trying to get approved for almost 10 years. This is the creation of an outdoor classroom. The board has finally approved our proposal and the hope is that by next year we will have a functional outdoor classroom.
