Auburn Student ECO-Conference Project
Our goal is to promote Environmental awareness and make community resources available. The principal has given permission for the Green Team, with staff supervision, to host the Ecology Conference. We will also be inviting environmental groups from other surrounding high schools to send interested students from their Ecology/Environmental, Diversity Group, and Free the Children groups to attend.
We have booked "Drive Wise" to present their program: a staff and student take a 20 minute drive and then a 40 minute presentation is given to the group on driving to lower emissions; the Staff and Student repeat the 20 minute driving session to record how their emissions changed. We have also booked a Dalhousie business student who will talk about the recycle program "Ready, Set, Recycled" that he is running in schools and businesses to recycle "batteries, cell phones and ink cartridges". Additionally we are hoping to book more speakers: Clean NS, Green NS, Dalhousie sustainability (Type of Education needed to find Green jobs, what are Green Jobs?). Program students will also be given the opportunity to highlight their school's activities, share contact information and set new goals for their schools. We are planning to provide a vegetarian pizza lunch prepared on site and hope to have a few local chefs do some simple presentations on eating locally, and organic.
CDHS Community Garden Project
We are hoping to build a community garden on school property where students can grow vegetables and learn everything there is to know about growing your own food. In grade 9 geography, the students learn about reducing our eco-footprints. Students learned about where their food comes from and the huge amount of energy needed to produce their food when it comes from far away places. Last year, the students started vegetables plants in the classroom from seed and were very excited about the prospect of taking the plants home and growing them. This year, we'd like to extend the learning and have the students grow their plants in our new garden. We'd also like to put in a compost system for the school located beside the garden.
The Dogwood Paper Diet Project
The Green Team at Dogwood has decided to focus on reducing our paper product consumption. Last year, we stepped up our recycling program and composting program to reduce the amount of waste we produced as a school. Going a step further, this year we are going to reduce consumption which will consequently further reduce our paper waste products.
We will start with an audit of our paper supply budget to determine consumption levels for the past two years. We will also have students complete a "Paper Use Survey" to determine consumption practices at school. These same measuring tools will be used to determine progress at a later date. Further promotion of litterless lunches at school. School-wide printing protocol for word processed assignments will become unnecessary when district computer upgrades allow students to hand in assignments and receive feedback electronically. All intermediate students will be registered for district based e-mail accounts to use for their school work. Art software and hardware will be purchased to facilitate and encourage digital artwork. E-mail and Web site use will become the dominant tool for communication with parents. Community awareness will result as the Dogwood community promotes a junk mail reduction program.
Cell Phone and Other Consumables Collection Project
Our goal is to work within our community to:
1- educate community members on methods of waste reduction for a sustainable future;
2- implement collection boxes for used cell phones and other consumables throughout the community to reduce land fill volume and hazardous waste.
ENSS is a school with enrolment of 1350 students. To celebrate Earth Week last school year in April, ENSS trial-launched the ECO-CELL cell phone collection and recycling program (see www.eco-cell.org). This program is endorsed by about 60 zoos throughout North America as well as other non-profit organizations, and touts being "the premiere cell phone recycling program for environmentally minded fundraisers".
We would meet our goal by rolling out the ECO-CELL program more broadly this school year. It would include a refresher at ENSS, particularly focused on new Grade 9 students, addition of our 7 feeder schools, and soliciting local community businesses, service clubs and public centres for involvement in the program. Once the infrastructure and process was in place, we would expand beyond cell phones and include additional hard-to-recycle consumer products such as used CD's and DVD's, household batteries, and ink cartridges.
Water is Life Project
The goal of our project is to provide greater access to clean water and address sustainability. We will be developing a "Water is Life" campaign which seeks to promote greater awareness of sustainability issues related to water. We will meet this goal by putting on fundraisers to raise money for water filters and raising money for a youth team who is going to Ghana to build and install 24 water filters and build 2 wells in July 2010.
This project will impact our school as it will raise awareness about clean water issues, in our school and community. We will measure the change in attitudes and knowledge with surveys taken before and after our campaign begins. This project will also provide opportunities for students to take action and address sustainability issues. We will be able to measure our efforts by counting the number of water bottles sold, counting the amount of money raised to address water issues, doing a count to measure if the number of students using reusable water bottles increases before and after the campaign, and counting the number of action projects that result from this campaign.
Garden Development and Relocation Project
Our project will be to create a more appealing garden that can be used and easily attended to during the spring and fall months of school. It will be a learning environment for the entire school to use.
Asking teachers' students what they require to make the garden useful through questionnaires, careful planning of the site to best use the area, generating good soil for the garden to grow in.
The garden will make the school more inviting to guests and parents, allow us to teach with a green thumb, to connect our students with the environment in a different way than we are now.
Fairy Lake Project
GC Huston is working hard to preserve a wetland that is right beside our school. We have started to build bird houses and bat boxes but there are many more things we would like to do if we have funding. We would like to plant more bushes closer to the water to protect it from run off. We would also like to make some signage to explain to the many people who walk the trail of the importance of the lake. We also have plans to create turtle logs for the many snapping turtles that live in the lake. We would like the students to create more seating. The students have many great ideas and just need a little help to make it all come together. This is an area that many people in our community use on a regular basis.
Boomerang Lunches/Litterless Lunches Project
Boomerang lunches: Bring back the litter from lunch bags home to be sorted and disposed of appropriately by the student and his/her family. Students will be more aware of the amount of waste their lunch produces and we will help them find ways to reduce the volume of waste. The ultimate goal would be to prepare litterless lunches. We will promote this initiative through presentations in each classroom by us and our classmates, daily reminders on the P.A., contests, and random auditing of student lunches. The school will share the results with the entire school (one example, we will build a pyramid of plastic water bottles before our campaign, and one after a few months to see if we find less plastic bottles in the garbage and in lunches).
We will also compost a small amount of waste to show the positive outcome of composting. This will be put in our garden at school. The Fruit Snack Program at our school has agreed to only use compostable cutlery and cups so that we can compost in our garden at school. They also use seasonal food and locally grown when possible. Parents will be impacted by seeing the amount of waste returned home in the lunches of their children. The students will be more involved when purchasing their "lunch" food at the grocery store trying to minimize packaging and find ways to make their lunches truly litterless. This might help more families to choose to eat more locally grown, seasonal, unpackaged, unprepared food which is better for us anyway, and better for our community!
2010 - Enjoy the Outdoors Project
The goal of this project is to have our school's senior leadership council and environmental club working cooperatively to create an outdoor sitting and learning area that is made from recycled material.
Both the council and club have been informed of the project and students seem keen to participate. Student leader Karissa has helped prepare this proposal and is currently getting leadership students and community members involved. She has put together a list of items needed and is working on a time line to achieve this project. Teachers and our Principal have been informed and are supportive of the project.
Greening J.C.R. Project
The purpose of this project is to restore our school's entrance to what it once was and begin a beautification of our school's exterior. Providing an opportunity for students with Multiple Exceptionalities to be seen as genuine leaders in their school community is a secondary goal of this project. Creating an opportunity for students to be introduced to members of the community, develop relationships while working towards a common goal and practice socialization will also be the result of this project. We will meet this goal by purchasing and planting three trees to be planted at the main entrance of our school. We will also purchase bird houses that the students have researched, and will paint and place throughout the trees on the property. Implementing the first-annual plant sale will allow students to create stronger relationships with the community.
This project will impact our school by enabling students to take pride in their school. When community members visit our school facility for evening events they will quickly know that the school is a school where students take pride in their school and ecological environment.
Greenfilms…Documenting Change Project
The goal of this project is to engage students in thinking, writing, and acting on environmental issues. They will choose from local environmental themes and then write, film, edit and produce short documentaries on these issues. Ideally they will learn to write powerfully and grow a better understanding of the principles driving the visual communication that is such an enormous part of their culture. Because they are working on topics that they value and that they know have repercussions for their future, the learning they do will have an enduring value for environmental change. Our class is working with writer/director/editor Roger Maunder to write, film and produce videos on environment change.
A Day for Africa Project
The goal of this project is threefold:
We will meet the named goals by implementing proven fund raising programs known as "A Day for Africa". "A Day for Africa" is a community-based fund raising program that coordinates the efforts of volunteers who perform odd jobs for local residents in return for donations. Those donations are then forwarded to the Stephen Lewis Foundation where they are used to support grassroots organizations in 15 Sub-Saharan Africa countries. That takes care of the first goal. The second goal is simple: "A Day for Africa" requires individuals to organize it, and if we take on that task as young people, we will certainly fulfill the second goal. Finally, the third goal is inherent to the program. "A Day for Africa" brings people together, who often-times do not know each other and it allows each of them to contribute to the cause according to their personal means and abilities. Whether it's people giving their time to volunteer, other people "hiring" volunteers, business owners contributing resources or otherwise – the third goal is achieved simply by the nature of the program.
This project will impact our school by providing young people with the opportunity to get involved in a worthwhile initiative that is wholly "owned" and operated by them. This translates into many things including hands–on learning, becoming aware of a global issue and empowerment; furthermore it will impact our community by bringing individuals, organizations, and businesses together to contribute to the cause. That is how community is built, which is something we desperately need in our society.
What Can Youth Do? Project
Youth inspiring youth to take action. We will host a symposium at a local university and invite students grade 10 and up to attend. Key note speakers and break out sessions and "World Cafes" will all be incorporated. Depending on the number of attendees and the project each student is inspired to take on, the impact could be very far reaching, but most importantly the intent is for sustaining a project. Not to have it be a "one shot deal".
Compost A-Peel Project
The goals are to inform the students, staff, and parents of the school and the community of the town, about the environmental benefits of composting; to educate the students about the nutrient cycle, soil health, and how to build and maintain an effective composter; to encourage teamwork and engagement of students in working collectively for a common goal; and finally, to initiate a composting program at the school with participation from all classes.
This project had the support of the Principal, Advisory Council, teachers, and the Yard Transformation committee of the school. The Green Team meets regularly during school health breaks for planning sessions. Parent volunteers will guide the team on how to source information, locate free resources that may be available, and make contact with local experts about how to compost and how to build a composter, Initially, a workshop will be organized with students and volunteers to introduce vermi composting prior to getting our outdoor compost initiated in the spring. The knowledge has to come before the action. Funds will be sought to purchase equipment; through fundraising activities, such as collection of Canadian Tire Money, to be used to supplement project costs. The Green Team will disseminate information to the rest of the students at the school about composting. Each class will be provided with a compost pail, newsprint liners (local newspaper will be asked for donation of newsprint) and cleaning instructions. Compost aerating tools will be purchased to turn/aerate the compost. When the compost is ready, students will help to sieve and bag the compost for use of donation.
Making Greener Practices Stick Project
Our goal is to reduce our school's garbage waste by 30-45% through composting. We will meet this goal by having a green bin in each of the 17 classes in the school as well as the staff and caretaker lunchrooms. We would organize a student committee to collect and place the compost into a large outdoor bin. To get the students to realize what we are doing, we will present skits at assemblies and to each individual class. Each month we will present our progress of the project through pictures and video. Some incentives, rewards and contests will bring a greater awareness of the project and stimulate higher participation by classrooms. Articles will be submitted to the local community newspapers in the hopes that we will inspire other schools to follow our example.
Battle of the Grades Project
Battle of the grades is a newly instated program at the school to promote school spirit and inter-grade competition! At the beginning of the 2009-10 school year, each grade was given a different colour: grade nines are blue, grade tens are green, grade elevens are grey and finally grade twelve students are red. These colors are the "Grades Colors". Throughout the school year, Nepean will be hosting several spirit days and competitions for the entire school to participate in. These events range from our annual Strong Knight Competition to a winter clogging drive for the Ottawa mission. At each event we encourage all grades to both attend and participate; points are awarded to each grade with either the winning status or the most participants. And finally, at the end of the year after points have been awarded for various spirit days, clothing drives, strong knight and other events, the winning grade will be awarded a fantastic, educational field trip to Lafleche Adventure Aerial and Caves park! The school is a notorious sports-centered school; our sports events boast hundred of spectators but our Student Council events attract a much smaller crowd. By incorporating a competitive aspect to our events and imitating a new, creative program, we hope to attract a wider range of participants and thus in turn increase our school spirit.
Along with boosting school spirit and participation in school sanctioned activities, this program engages students to participate in events that benefit the community. For example, this fall/winter season, students of the school will be encouraged to donate clothing to the Ottawa Mission. Points are awarded to each grade for every article of clothing donated. These points are contributed to the grade's final, Battle of the grades scores. At the launch of the competition, guest speakers from the Ottawa Mission were invited to speak to the students of the importance of the work of the Mission and the value of the students' participation.
Water Way Restoration/Interpretative Trail Project
Our project is a 3 phase project:
Phase 1: Students will engage in collecting water shed data of the Port Maitland area to be shared online with the general public as well as Trout Unlimited. As well a more detailed study of the Port Maitland river ways will be done focusing on Beaver River. The choice of this river is due to the fact that it is the only river in which Sea Trout and Pickerel co-exist.
Phase 2: After identifying areas in need of clean up, we will organize clean up runs to clear the river of garbage. Trout Unlimited is keen on this and will be working with our school to help with the clean up. After clean up is completed, areas will be chosen to build natural eddies and fish ladders where needed to help foster the growth of the fish in the area. A side component will be to raise fish in the school to later be released into the revitalized river system.
Phase 3: After the river has been revitalized, an interpretive trail extension will be added to our current trail that follows along the river. Our Enviro students will be studying the plant and animal life along the river to choose which animals and plants will be represented by signs created by the grade 6 students.
Our project will have a big impact on the community as our current nature trail has had much use since we completed its revitalization 2 years ago. The community has helped with the upkeep, and is very keen on our new plans to increase the size.
Princess Margaret Butterfly Garden Project
At present, this area consists of tarmac surrounded by a chain link fence. Parents wait in this space when accompanying their children to and from school. It is barren and uninviting for any activity by the students, parents and community. The goal of our project is to convert this space into an area of play and learning, as well as a comfortable area for students, parents and the community to enjoy.
Another way we hope to engage the students is to create another area of art, learning and play within this space. This would be achieved by painting a game or learning activity on the tarmac. We would also like to include some sort of native artwork or feature in our garden to acknowledge this growing segment of our community.
We would like to add color and life to the area by creating a Butterfly Garden in the corner. This will include bench seating beside the Butterfly Garden, along the fence. To frame and define the area we will add two additional large planters at each end of the benches. This would then create an outdoor classroom.
The impact of this project is enormous. The students and teachers at Princess Margaret School, parents of students, and the community will all benefit from this project.
Students will benefit during the learning part of their day when it is used as an outdoor classroom. They will also benefit during their leisure part of the day, when it can be used to play games or as an area of relaxation.
The teacher will be able to utilize this area in so many areas of their curriculum. Grades 1-3 students learn about trees, plants, and the life cycle of the caterpillar. In this outdoor classroom, students, will have an opportunity observe the topic which they are learning about. Students learning about plants will have the opportunity to put the plants in the earth, and learn how they grow and thrive. Students learning about life cycles will have the opportunity to monitor growth and changes in the plants and insects that make this garden and all that happens in it, their inspiration.
Parents of the students will have a comfortable place to wait beside the garden as they wait for their children. Members of the community will enjoy the color and life as they walk by and may choose to take a moment and sit amongst the flowers.
Nature Patrol Project
The Nature Patrol is a group of Robert Scott students who focus on creating, organizing and implementing a number of action projects to bring awareness to our student body of the importance of reducing the carbon footprint of our school. The Nature Patrol has a number of projects planned targeting reducing the following in our school:
They have already gathered baseline data from the Director of Operations for our school district on energy use and garbage waste so they are able to monitor the progress of their hard work and determine whether they are going to meet their goal.
The Nature Patrol is in the infancy stages of creating a school wide composting program to reduce our garbage waste. Their plan is to promote composting organics as an alternative to putting it in the garbage bin. This will reduce our school's garbage waste significantly. The Nature Patrol plans to provide each class with a compost container which will be collected every day and emptied into one of three large totes (400 l). When the compost is ready for the garden, they will be donating it to the local community garden project, a local initiative to support growing and eating local food.
The Nature Patrol plans to start a campaign to reduce the energy consumption of the school by bringing awareness to staff and students of the importance of turning lights off and the heat down when not needed. Nature Patrol intends to promote the initiative by having students and teachers dine in the dark (with the windows open of course!). These young leaders also intend to promote energy conservation by asking teachers to shut the lights off in rooms when they are not being used such as during recess. Again, the Nature Patrol has collected baseline data to monitor the progress of their efforts.
The Nature Patrol is dedicated to celebrating the successes along the way. They intend to provide incentives for classes to do their part to "Green" our school. These incentives include winning class field trips to local nature trails and parks for those classes that have the least garbage waste and turn out the lights the most at recess and lunch.
Courtyard Beautification Project
The purpose of this project is to restore our school entrance to what it once was and begin a beautification of our school's exterior. Providing an opportunity for students with multiple exceptionalities to be seen as genuine leaders in their school community is a secondary goal of this project. Creating an opportunity for students to be introduced to members of the community, develop relationships while working towards a common goal and practice socialization will also be the result of this project. We will meet this goal by purchasing and planting three trees to be planted at the main entrance of our school. We will also purchase bird houses that the students listed above will paint and place throughout the trees on the property. We will also implement the first-annual plant sale tol allow students to create stronger relationships with the community.
This project will impact our school by enabling students to take pride in their school. When community members visit our school facility for evening events they will quickly know that the school is a school where students take pride in their school and ecological environment.
"Greening of Our Schoolyard" Project
Our school yard has no shady areas for the students to take shelter from the sun during the summer months. The school community is looking at revising the school plan for our school yard when it comes to shade and greening of our yard by planting appropriate trees. The students would select the area from this central plan. We would consult with the Board's facility department and with the City of Vaughan to ensure that the location that is selected and the variety of trees that are selected are appropriate etc. (i.e. Asian long horned beetle bug, disease resistant, etc) The purchase of our trees would be made at a local business and the community would assist with the planting of the trees, if appropriate. The students would be involved in maintaining the trees, i.e. watering. (Our custodian would be able to support the students in this regard as well.)
The students would benefit from the shade that would be provided and our intermediate students would be able to continue to refine their sense of responsibility since they would need to follow through on their specific tasks as well as work with other individuals in our school community.
Plants for Every Room Project
Sir Oliver Mowat CI experienced a mould problem two years ago and half of the second floor had to be rebuilt. This has made staff and students more aware of the need for optimal air quality. For many reasons such as lack of open windows for direct air exchange, it is believed that the school has very poor air quality. Bad air quality can lead to asthma and other serious respiratory side effects and diseases.
Mowat's Eco-school club has created a plan to clean the air and to add a little colour to each classroom. The plan is to have at least one plant in every classroom. Hopefully, by introducing one plant into every classroom of the school people will feel more motivated to continue to add plants to their collection in the room, eventually becoming a miniature garden. Plants help to clean the air and reduce CO2, by taking CO2 in and transforming it into filtered clean oxygen.
St. Francis Greening Project
At the school, we have a playground with tremendous potential. Our parent council, in partnership with community sponsors, has identified a need for more protective shade areas for students and staff during outdoor activities, more choices of student meeting places or areas of play, and more opportunity to experience a natural environment. We would like our school greening project to be our school community greening project.
This project will be completed in several phases:
Keyworth Greening Project
Goal 1: Create an enticing and educational outdoor environment in which the children can safely and comfortably play and learn year round, thereby reducing antisocial behaviour, acts of vandalism and knock/bump injuries.
Goal 2: Create more shade, thereby reducing the ambient temperature of the yard and the front of the building, the children's exposure to the sun's harmful rays and our use of air conditioning inside the centre during the summer months (reducing our energy consumption).
Goal 3: To attract a diversity of wildlife, including rabbits, toads, squirrels, hummingbirds, butterflies and an interesting variety of insects.
Goal 4: Educate the children about organic gardening, healthy eating, caring for the environment and demonstrating respect for nature's flora and fauna.
We will create this by…
Goal 1: Install a zig-zagged wooden log seating area
Goal 2: Plant trees and shrubs to create shady spaces for small and large group congregation.
Goal 3: Provide a bird bath and birdhouse
Goal 4: Research organic gardening methods: plant, care for and harvest vegetables and fruit gardens
Community Organization Motivates Peers on Successful Teamwork-COMPOST Project
The goal of our project is to raise awareness and educate our student population about reducing, reusing and recycling organic food waste, through the establishment of a composting program within our school community.
The school counselors will run a contest between the three grade levels in our school (grades 10, 11, and 12) encouraging students to place their organic food waste in specially coloured and/or marked buckets (designated for grade 10, 11,& 12 food waste) that will be strategically placed around the school. These buckets will be weighed and emptied into the composting container outside on a daily basis, with the weight being recorded per grade level on a visible scale posted in the main entrance of our school. Weekly announcements will be made informing the school population regarding the grade level that has contributed the most waste. At the end of every month the grade level with the highest weight will be permitted to engage in a recreational activity of their choice, which will take place during a class period in the afternoon.
Feed the City Project
Another student and I who are very passionate about service at our school have spent a lot of time educating ourselves about local poverty and how to eradicate it. We have spent time downtown personally speaking with street people as well as speaking with many people involved in providing services such as food, shelter and medical care to street people. Through all of this we have learned many things, such as, there are no meals available in the city on Sundays until dinner time and that these people do not just want handouts, they want a time to connect and build relationships with other people. So, with this and many other things in mind we came up with an idea to "Feed the City". The basic goal of our project is to provide a meal on one Sunday each month for the street community and to spend time creating connections and breaking down barriers between our community and theirs. Another huge aspect of this project is to provide an easy way for students at our school to volunteer for a few hours and learn an incredible amount about these people. Also, what we really want to do is begin to break down the barriers and prejudices against homeless people and let people know that these people are incredibly intelligent and interesting people and to make the fact widely known that it could be anybody that winds up on the streets.
We will meet this goal by getting this program set up. We can have a few different students volunteer each time, which will spread the word throughout our school and community about the problems around homelessness and the ways to fix it. This project will bring our school and community one step closer to solving poverty in Victoria.
Green Computers: A Computer Lab Powered by the Sun Project
This project aims to create awareness and opportunity for education regarding sustainable power generation in schools across Canada through the installation of solar panels on the roof of the school. The intent is to supply the energy requirements of several computers in the school with the generated power, and to reduce the school's carbon footprint. As one of the first projects of its kind in the province of Saskatchewan, the objective is for this project to serve as a model for the establishment of other school solar initiatives in Saskatchewan and across Canada. Overall, the community would become engaged in an innovative project which increases public awareness about sustainable technology, and students would be encouraged to start other initiatives to make our school and world a better place.
Outdoor Education Green Space Project
Our goal as a classroom is to continue our school's goal of being greener and to involve our students in an environmental project. We would like to build two large recycling units for outside of our school so that our students as well as the community can utilize them.
We plan to have a shaded outdoor courtyard at the back of our school for students to get out of the sun. We want to have benches, pathways, eco-chairs (made out of grass), bird feeders, bird houses and trees for shade. Kids need shade not only to stay cool but to stay away from the sun's harmful rays. This would promote a healthy school environment. We thought that making stepping stones in our art classes would give this area a nice creative touch.
Our students have enjoyed working with our Communities in Bloom committee sprucing up our community with plants, trees and flowers, creating greener spaces. The students mentioned that the sides of our schools, underneath the classroom windows, are always muddy. To eliminate the mud, we would like to see shrubs and plants in this area to soak up the water so that it would be less muddy. This would also give each classroom some responsibility in taking care of its own garden. This would also provide a leadership role in each of the classrooms.
Another goal of ours is to create and paint two different murals on our blank brick walls just outside of our school's entrances. We would involve a local artist to help our classroom paint them. This way, everyone can enjoy them as they come into the school.
All of these project ideas started out in the grade three and four classroom but will be implemented throughout our K-8 school. Our classroom believes that it only starts with one passionate person for a whole school or community to get involved. These projects are not only for our school but for our small rural community too.
Garden Development, Compost and Recycling Enhancement Project
The goal of this project is to increase the awareness of students and staff about recycling and protecting the environment. To achieve this goal, the school's Environmental Club will expand our recycling program by purchasing more bins so that the cafeteria and each classroom and office can easily participate in this venture. We would also like to extend our program to include the recycling of batteries.
To expand students' knowledge about environmental protection, a butterfly garden will be planted by the Environmental Club and our horticultural students. A composting bin will be purchased to accommodate the waste from the Food Studies program and this organic matter will be used as garden fertilizer.
The impact of an expanded program will heighten both staff and students' recycling knowledge and instill habits that will be continued and promoted outside of school. We hope that as we become known in the community as a "green school" we will be a role model that many families and businesses will emulate. These projects will ultimately help minimize our school's carbon footprint.
As a school community, we believe that if we educate our students and instil in them a respect for the environment, they will carry this with them and pass it on to their families and future generations.
Zero Waste Challenge Project
Our goal is to reduce the school's garbage to zero, continuously measuring and analyzing the sources of the garbage, and working to reduce them. Two years ago, our school threw out 85 kg of garbage a day – 17 tonnes a year! We have actively composted 5 kg a day; we collect all beverage containers (25,000 last year); we recycle all plastics (1-7), metal, glass; we recycle all paper; we changed our lunch schedule so students play first and then eat; we have tried composting meat, cheese, bread etc. To date, we average 30 kg of garbage a day.
Windermere Organic Garden Project
With a greenhouse already built in our courtyard garden by students and teachers, we feel strongly that it needs to be powered with a renewable source of energy to reach our long-term goal of producing zero waste and being free of a carbon footprint. The goal of our garden is to increase our food yield. We plan to install solar panels in order to heat our greenhouse and effectively grow organic vegetables for our school cafeteria. We plan to purchase solar panels by applying for grants and working with community experts such as the Environmental Youth Alliance and Kwantien Polytechnic University students of the Horticulture program on renewable energy and greenhouse growing. Our garden is fully supported by our principal, school staff, and community members.
Our involvement in the school and community has filled us with knowledge that has made us aware of our global impact. The raising of awareness and experiential component of supporting and growing organic and locally produced food are a step in a positive direction towards social and environmental change. The students have become much more conscious of their eating habits and the consequences that our generation will have to face in the future. With solar panels, we will be able to contribute more produce such as organic greens and vegetables for our school salad bar at lunchtimes. In addition, this will encourage more students to volunteer and come to our garden workshops to not only get involved but to learn about renewable energy. Eventually, we will be able to increase our production yield so that we can fully support the cafeteria with produce. Installing solar panels is our next big step in achieving this goal.