"What are schools doing?" we keep being asked. Some are able to carry on through creative means with relatively little disruption to their program. Student leadership has come to the fore.

• A grade 7 class has become the EcoTeam at its school, continuing projects and organizing campaigns.
• An 'ecoclass approach' has become a way to develop whole-school involvement. One class is responsible for waste, another for energy, etc. The ecoclasses rotate.
• A first-time EcoSchools applicant is running the program through small student teams with very focussed tasks (announcements, energy monitoring).
• The principal supervises all the clubs (including the EcoClub) during lunch hour. Student leaders for each club head the initiatives.

More teachers are finding ways to embed components of EcoSchools into their day to day classroom work. Actions such as monitoring energy and communicating results, assessing garbage, and creating environmental posters have become classroom projects at one school, starting with a single teacher and gradually spreading to other classrooms.

Whatever stage you find yourselves at, we are here to help. See the contact us information in the sidebar. 

Trees are life. The growth of a tree both above the ground and below is a gold mine of lessons. (The youngest child can trace its roots as they push up the asphalt in their search for water.) 

We received several thoughts about trees on school grounds almost as soon as the newsletter was sent out on December 18--pretty amazing for one of the busiest times of the year! We heard caring thoughts from principals, teachers, and students. Thank you.

Trees benefit our students for generations--for all the wonders they provide, the shade and cooling, the magic on our school grounds, places to find solace in, beautiful living memorials--and long after school days are past, precious childhood memories. Click to read people's thoughts in  Why we love trees. 

More kits! We thought we had only four mushroom-growing kits to give away, but it turns out we had more. All who have entered so far will receive a kit. AND we have some left--so maybe it's not too late to get one! (This time we will need to do a draw if demand exceeds supply.)

To enter: Send us a couple of sentences about a tree or trees and school grounds...real or imagined, past or present. Please title your message "Mushroom kit draw: my thoughts on trees in school grounds" and include your name, grade(s) and/or subject(s) taught, and school.  We will add your thoughts to our Why we love trees collection.

Deadline: Thursday, February 21st

EcoSchools Section 1: Question 1.6, Section 4: Question 4.5, 4.6, 4.7; Section 5: Question 5.7  

York Mills CI, Feb. 2012

National Sweater Day is WWF's light-

hearted campaign to raise awareness about energy use and climate change. Last year, 1.5 million Canadians donned warm sweaters, turned down the heat and helped to conserve energy. If you're not quite convinced that wearing a sweater can make a difference, watch this impassioned plea from a grandmother to wear your sweater!  

Schools have the people energy needed to make this an especially fun event! It's just days away. Consider making a PA announcement inviting everyone to participate.

EcoSchools section 4, potentially all questions 

Do you teach ESL or have newcomer students in your classroom? Teachers and eco-embassadors at Greenwood Secondary School (an all-ESL high school) have been developing many effective strategies for teaching ecoliteracy to newcomer high school students.  

This workshop is part of the annual secondary school ESL/ELD mini-conference and will focus on school-wide and class-based activities that help raise awareness about the need for ecological stewardship. Bring a memory stick for take-home resources.

 When: Friday, Feb. 15, 8:30 am-3:00 pm. Participants select two workshops from the morning and afternoon sessions.

Where: John Polanyi CI, 640 Lawrence Ave W

Register: Go to Key to Learn  (on a TDSB networked computer) and search for "Celebrating Linguistic Diversity Lite!"

More information: Contact iva.kinclova@tdsb.on.ca.

The ETT Environment Committee and Forest Valley Outdoor Education Centre staff are sponsoring a winter wonderland hike in the Don River Valley, followed by a light dinner and the stirring, multi award-winning film Chasing Ice! This visually stunning film assembles evidence of climate change using time-lapse photography to, in the words of the promo "compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice as they disappear at a breathtaking rate." Organizers hope to have director Jeff Orlowski or researcher-photographer James Balog skyped in to join us. Don't miss it!

Click to see the trailer and read more about Chasing Ice.

*Who can come? This event is for ETT and OSSTF members.  

Where: Forest Valley Outdoor Education Centre

Questions: Contact Pam Miller 

Register: By Feb 20 at 4PM. ETT members register online.

                   OSSTF members contact Tim Heffernan   

EcoSchools Section 1: Question 1.6, Section 4: Question 4.5, 4.6, 4.7; Section 5: Question 5.7

In this challenging year some schools are worried about losing momentum. Earth Hour provides a great opportunity for a sharply focused, awareness-building effort. Students can take the lead in this simple, direct action campaign and organize their school to do as little or as much as it can manage. Imagine the learning opportunities for building environmental citizenship skills!

Why bother turning out the lights for an hour? Isn't it just symbolic? Yes...and no. Many of our schools have gone way beyond the hour. And symbolic actions, like the minute's silence on Remembrance Day, can be very powerful. Instead of a minute, it's a whole hour observed by millions of people around the Earth to build awareness of our need to reduce energy use--and create an appetite for doing more. Participation in Earth Hour is about daring to taking positive environmental action, wherever we can make a difference.

What about teaching? Earth Hour is a sure-fire way to add a new note to teaching about energy or citizenship action that has created change. Or writing that inspires questions to expand the action of the hour! 

For action ideas check out ecoschools.ca>earthhour or the WWF global Earth Hour site.

EcoSchool Section 4: Questions 4.2, 4.3, 4.4  

Climate change is replacing the weather in elevator talk with strangers musing about why our last two winters have had so little snow. Beyond its recreational and aesthetic value, snow plays an important role in our ecosystem. Underneath that quiet white blanket hums a world of activity. When we get our next good snowfall, your school grounds can be a great place to engage students in subnivean (that layer under the snow) explorations!

Check out the cross-curricular activities in Step Outside's feature article "Snow--the Action Down Under" for some new winter outdoor learning ideas. Try out "Melting Ice," one of R4R's top picks, which explores the effect of melting ice on global systems (middle and secondary grades). Partway down the article, clicking on Solidifying warm gelatin in clear canisters will take you to a 13 page pdf of "Winter Wildlife" activities from Edwards Camp and Conference. Or simply take a walk after a fresh snowfall and invite students to search for different types of snow (see the list of Inuit words for kinds of snow by scrolling to the bottom of the main article).

 EcoSchool Section 4, Questions 4.4, 4.5  

Are you looking for hands-on science experiences for your students? The Science and Technology department offers kits that do just that. Not only will students have fun as they experiment, but the skills they develop will help to build the foundations for ecological literacy. You can borrow most kits for up to six weeks.

Do solar panels work in the winter?  

Of course they do! Book the grade 6 electricity kit and build electrical circuits powered by batteries or solar panels. Discuss energy (renewable and non-renewable) on a local and global scale with students by starting with a live solar pv system right here in Toronto. Students can get an online view of the live system at Sir William Lyon Mackenzie (generating energy right now!).  

You can help us to entice teachers to "step outside" more often for some of their classroom program delivery!

Here's a chance to share your experience! The Back to Nature Network, Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario (COEO), Green Teacher magazine, and Ontario Society for Environmental Education (OSEE) are co-sponsoring a call for articles from Ontario teachers and TAs (K-8) who regularly use the outdoors as the context for teaching environmentally themed lessons.  

We know many Toronto youth are active and engaged. Help us find and share stories of inspiring young Toronto activists who are demanding change from our civic leaders. Submit your ideas to Deborah.moffett@tdsb.on.ca.

Calling all "hosers"! Researchers at Wilfred Laurier University are using backyard rinks to track climate change. Rinkwatch is a recently launched website that invites Canadians to become part of a giant Canada-wide science project. All you have to do is send weekly and annual reports on the condition of the ice in your backyard.

You may not think of it as science, but that's exactly what you will be doing--making regular, systematic observations about environmental change in your own backyard. You will be joining a growing league of citizen-scientists from every province and territory in Canada.

Geography and Environmental Studies professor Robert McLeman hopes that this project will help get families observing changes in climate by monitoring their own backyard rinks.

Pooling enough data from across the country will enhance the data coming from weather stations, giving researchers the kind of resolution they don't get from weather stations alone.  

Keeping the spirit alive!

Preparing to become a (re)certified EcoSchool is always a challenge. And it's not strictly required--even though it is enmeshed in curriculum, student leadership, community engagement and reducing our schools' environmental impact. That's why it is such a heroic enterprise.

Of course becoming certified is a more difficult task this year. While achieving certification is valuable, maintaining the spirit of EcoSchools and continuing as much of the good work as possible no matter what is even more valuable.

We feel lonely. Please stay in touch even if you are not planning to have a certification audit this year. And thank you to each one of you for carrying on as best you can.

Through rain, shine or snow...

Our very best wishes,