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Great organization tool for campaigns!
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2011 Great Big Crunch
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The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs produced this charming Great Big Crunch video at Thorncliff Park last year. Just 2:22 long!
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Square foot gardening |  | |
Great for beginners and small spaces!
A square foot garden takes advantage of every inch of your growing space and also requires less weeding. You can plant different crops in each square and harvest a nice mix of different fruits and vegetables.
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Resilience on our ecoliteracy blog! |  | |
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Special Event: Eco Youth Day at the Green Living Show
When: April 13th Where: Direct Energy Centre (Exhibition Place) For more information contact: cmckenzie@green-living.ca or call 416-360-0044 ext 327
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The Water Brothers
A new series debuts on TVO March 19th at 7:00 pm to coincide with Canada Water Week! Join brothers Tyler and Alex Miffllin as they explore global water issues.
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The Water Brothers will be appearing at the Green Living Show Eco Youth Day on April 13th.
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| Life Below Zero |  | |
What's happened to our Canadian "cold" genes? Have we gone soft and lost our 'winter edge'?
CBC DOC ZONE
Thursday, February 9th at 9 pm on CBC-TV and on Friday February 10th at 10 pm on CBC News Network
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Winter? climate chaos!!
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Writer Frances Moore Lappe of Diet for a Small Planet fame uses the phrase climate chaos in her new book EcoMind. Is it a better phrase for connecting our winter weather and climate change?
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Climate chaos--is spring already here?
Spring brings thoughts of growing things and also of Earth Hour. So February has become the big gardening issue. We've shed our hats and mitts for winter above zero and instead bundled up our staff's expert advice on small school food gardens with a schedule for starting seeds indoors. We hope it will give you a bit more thinking and planning time. Likewise with Earth Hour. We urge you to treat yourselves to explore the global WWF Earth Hour site. We especially recommend checking out Earth Hour around the world on your own--or with your students!
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TDSB Earth Hour 2012
Friday March 30th 2:00-3:00 pm
EcoSchools Section 1: Questions 1.5, 1.6; Section 4: Questions 4.3, 4.5; Section 5: Questions 5.4, 5.7
Has Earth Hour fatigue set in? We hope not. The global campaign is now called Earth Hour+ -- encouraging us to do more. TDSB EcoSchools have done a wonderful job in past years of using Earth Hour to raise awareness about the link between climate change and the unthinking use of resources. It remains a delicious opportunity for students of all ages to participate in communicating about and implementing simple conservation actions before, during, and after Earth Hour. Last year our in-school Earth Hour showed a 29.9% reduction, topping the previous 2009 record of 27.8%. Can we beat it this year?
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Teachers can plan now to lead an Earth Hour Electricity Walk using the EcoSchools lesson plan and PowerPoint presentation available at ecoschools.ca/Earth Hour 2012 if you didn't get a chance to do it last year. Two earlier Earth Hour activities created for our schools also remain available, EcoSystems Jenga and the Recycling Calendar Scavenger Hunt.
See the global Earth Hour site for additional resources.
The global Earth Hour occurs on Saturday, March 31st from 8:30-9:30 pm. Be there...in the dark!
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The Great Big Crunch--March 8th 2:30 pm
 EcoSchools Section 5: Question 5.6
Just in time for nutrition month, FoodShare's annual Great Big Crunch event is back!
What? After a day of apple education, students across Canada will join together to take a great big 'crunch' in celebration of local nutritious food. Healthy for both people and the planet!
When? March 8th at 2:30 pm
Where to get apples: Purchase local apples from your local green grocer, farmer's market or supermarket. Toronto schools can order from the FoodShare warehouse.
For more information, email thegreatbigcrunch@foodshare.net.
Registration information: Click here.
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Beyond beans? Getting a start on a school food garden
EcoSchools Section 3: Question 3.3; Section 4: Question 4.1; Section 5: Question 5.5
Imagine a child taking the proudly grown bean or tomato seedling from the window ledge and planting it in a school garden--a chance to experience the miracle of growth...and then learn what it takes to grow food.
School grounds are unique environments for planting a food garden. They are not for the faint of heart. Our school ground greening staff would say at the outset start small
and involve others--especially your students--from the start.
What are the basics for busy teachers, students, and others ready to help? Sun..soil..watering..weeding..protection from pounding feet...summer volunteers...starting early for optimum learning and gardening results! Click here for the scoop on successful school gardening. Even if you only have your students plant seeds in pots, scroll down to the end to see the seed planting schedule.
Contact us! With so many schools interested in small food gardens, our school ground greening experts Gail Bornstein and Bruce Day can't visit you all. If you still have unanswered questions after you've read the complete version of "Beyond beans," contact Gail at 647-227-3450 or Bruce at 416-526-1049.
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Gardening resources
1. Sunday Harrison's
Green Thumbs, Growing Kids program with its splendid school community garden program at four inner city schools also has tips for school gardens. The site's Big Ideas page is a MUST SEE for systems thinking in action!
2. Ask a teacher about students gardening. John Atherton at Alpha Alternative II (grade 7-12) is a school garden enthusiast--so much so that he said we could publish his contact information if you want to talk about what's involved! 3. Exceptional print resource: Patterns through the Seasons: A Year of School Food Gardening Activities (Evergreen and LifeCycles BC, 2003) is a cornucopia of well-designed activities for the elementary grades and all the seasons. Don't read it all--just sample page 40 of Unit 2 (Winter), section 3 "Planning the Garden." But be careful. You might get hooked!!! |
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A secret to planning ahead for a school food garden (involves $$$)...
EcoSchools Section 1: Question 1.6; Section 5: Question 5.5
...is to start now!
If you are interested in a school food garden, don't wait for that blissful moment in spring when the quality of light and the smell in the air says "get growing." Rally your team and engage your students during the initial planning and fund-raising.
Get started by having your students practice their writing skills. Persuasive letters to parents, community members, and your local hardware store can solicit donations of garden gloves, trowels, and other garden supplies. Another set of letters might put out a general call for garden volunteers, or even ask for volunteers with special skills (see the EcoSchools Volunteer Opportunities tool)!
Applying for grants? A good start-up budget is between $500-700. Work with your students to create a list of all the materials and prices of items that you need. These organizations welcome applications for school garden projects:
1. Evergreen: $500-3000 for school ground greening
2. WWF Green Schools Grant: up to $5000 for greening projects
3. TD Friends of the Environment Fund
Use the Fundraising tips tool from the Certification Toolkit (pp. 87-89) to be guided by the knowledge and experience of our most seasoned EcoSchools staff.
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EcoSchools certification/re-certification
EcoSchools Section 1, Questions 1.1 and 1.2
It's February! Let's leap toward completing the EcoSchools online application form for certification/re-certification. No matter what the ground hog predicts, spring is just around the corner. With the change of seasons, schools get even busier. So why not start now? It's Leap Year--you've got an extra day to let us know that you plan to apply! You can even take advantage of our Early Bird audit feature: have your audit visit in April before you head outdoors to watch the trees leafing out and hear the chatter of students as they linger on the greening grass of their school ground.
For information and encouragement contact: wendy.abbot@tdsb.on.ca.
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Team-building at the EcoSchools Middle Schools Conference
EcoSchools Section 1: Question 1.4; Section 4: Questions 4.2 and 4.5
For four days last week the Brick Works came to life in a special way for EcoTeams from 40 schools. Visitors would have seen EcoTeams competing to build the tallest toothpick structure in the Marshmallow Challenge, racing against the clock in a timed waste audit, planning future EcoSchools activities, putting their leadership skills to the test in a whole site scavenger hunt, and more. The d ay was packed with fun and friendly competition!
EcoSchools Specialist Erin Wood says the results reinforced her reasons for structuring the conference the way she did, "Time and again when I visit schools I see that teams don't take time to do team-building. Wanting to get things done, they feel paying attention to their own team is a luxury. So it's no surprise that the 30 students who show up in September have dwindled to 8 by November. EcoSchools work needs to be fun, to attract and engage students so that the bonds of a strong team can grow."
The 2012 Middle Schools Conference provided a rich diet of activities for doing exactly that. When we did the Marshmallow Challenge as a department, we learned a lot about how we collaborate under intense pressure. Even the skeptics said they loved it! We've attached it along with two more from the online version of the Certification Toolkit (yes, there is an online version!).
Marshmallow Challenge
Tropical Island Climate Change Dramatization
Polar Bears and Ice Floes
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Clean Air Champions
EcoSchools Section 5: Question 5.5
Clean Air Champions (CAC) work to educate and inspire youth. CAC offers three engaging programs FREE for students. Each program includes curriculum-connected activities and a presentation from one of over 200 National, Olympic or Paralympic athletes. Click the links below for details.
HSBC Clean Air Achievers (bilingual, Grades 5-9: transportation choices, air quality, climate change and health)
Air Aware (bilingual, Grades 6-12: air quality, active living, and lung health)
High School Climate Challenge (students conduct school audits and surveys and then take action to reduce their school's carbon footprint)
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COOL 2.0 is here!
Many applications to EcoSchools Section 4: Questions 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5GreenLearning Canada has just launched COOL 2.0, an online community for teaching and learning about climate change. COOL 2.0 provides teaching resources on energy sources, the environment, and sustainability. At cool.greenlearning.ca you'll have access to lesson plans and activities, research and data, the ability to create assignments that integrate blogs, mapping, online discussions, and media galleries, plus a chance to exchange ideas in the Teacher Forum. Login today and check it out!
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From the editors' desk...making connections
Making connections is one of the touchstone phrases of ecological
literacy. This issue has been an unusually vivid example of connection-making among staff and between different parts of the program. It's packed with eye-opening resources that we hope you'll take a look at over the next month. The WWF video "Threads-We are all connected" is a sublime and unexpected rendering of connection-making. Take a minute (literally) and let its magic unfold before your eyes.
Best wishes,
The EcoSchools Communication Team
Eleanor Dudar, Jenn Vetter, and Diana Suzuki
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