EcoSchools Section 1: Question 1.1  

 

From now until mid-June Wendy Abbot has scheduled audits for schools that applied by the April 26th deadline to be EcoSchools-certified. 

 

How to prepare for your audit...

• Review pp. 4-14 of the Getting Ready for Your Certification Audit: The Look-fors Guide. Make sure that you have paid attention to the look-fors at your school (includes the points available for each look-for).

• Review the Portfolio Requirements ( Certification Toolkit pp.8-9; Portfolio Requirements guide) to be sure you have collected the right materials to share with your auditor.

• Check out "Unpacking Ecological literacy: A companion to the Section 4 EcoReview questions" for short descriptions and checklists to help teachers identify where their classroom program has been meeting many of the expectations for environmental teaching and learning. 

• Make the one-page lesson/unit summary available for teachers who can provide a brief description of a lesson or unit for inclusion in the Portfolio Binder.

 

 

Mountview Alternative School (Click to view map)

Wed., May 8th, 6:30 pm

Mountview Alternative/Keele Gym,

99 Mountview Ave. at Glenlake/Keele, just north of Bloor.

 

EcoSchools Section 1: Question 1.1; Section 2: Question 2.2.2

An email has gone out to all schools inviting them to participate in the Toronto Green Bin Program.  To find out if your school is ready, review the on-line questionnaire. Once your principal and head caretaker have given the go-ahead,  you can complete the questionnaire. This registers your  school and sets the process in motion for connecting with City staff. The new guide, Setting Up a Green Bin Program in Your School, is helpful when completing the questionnaire as well as providing best practice ideas for success from the start!

 

If your school has not yet responded, consider doing so before the end of June to avoid the September rush. Your visit from Board and City staff, and delivery of bins, labels, and posters can be scheduled now for either a late spring or mid-September launch.

  

EcoSchools Section 4: Questions 4.4, 4.5, 4.6  

  

Contacting Toronto: Under this Ground reveals the spaces under the streets of our city--our buried waterways and sewers. Andrew Cook's 10-year photographic exploration underground has captured the beauty and intricacy of the infrastructure built to deal with Toronto's wastewater. Cook's photos show us the marvels of human engineering and underline our reliance on this essential city service and the unseen part of the urban water cycle.  

  

Can this exhibit help change behaviour--bring home the connection between our sewers and turning taps off while brushing our teeth, taking short showers, flushing responsibly, disconnecting downspouts? What did Cook have to do to make the invisible visible for all to see? How did he get there? How did he light his shots? To generate dozens of questions and ignite excited inquiry about our unseen built environment, take your class down under to see what lies in the ground beneath our feet!  

 

May 1-31 St. Patrick subway station for Cook's posters   

The LCD screens in 63 stations show Andrew Emond's stop-motion animations that lead the viewer through the tunnels.  

 

Imagine the line-ups in the last few days--go early if you can!

   

EcoSchools Section 5: Question 5.6 

 

Alice Casselman, event organizer and president of the Association for Canadian Educational Resources (ACER), sees the pressing need to bring all sectors together for this inaugural symposium on climate change: "The climate is changing faster than ever and faster than any one community can react to on its own." Hosted by the Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning along with other partners, this event brings together scientists, environmentalists, ENGOs, community leaders, educators, and students to learn about and discuss climate change adaptation actions for the natural and urban parts of their communities.

 

May 23rd-24th Humber Arboretum Centre for Urban Ecology (Click here for map)

205 Humber College Blvd, Toronto, Ontario

Fee: $104 + tax

For details, registration, and donations: www.acer-acre.ca

 

EcoSchools Section 4: Questions 4.2, 4.3; Section 5: Question 5.6 

 

"Sitting is the smoking of our generation" The Harvard Business Review supplied us with this quote. Research shows that adults in the modern workplace spend 9.3 hours a day sitting. Getting outdoors in nature is good for everyone--not just the kids in our classrooms, but we adults too. Being in nature just a bit reduces stress while boosting immunity, ingenuity, and energy. The David Suzuki Foundation has issued the 30x30 nature challenge, asking us to spend 30 minutes a day in nature for the month of May. Participants can take the 30x30 pledge at davidsuzuki.org/30x30Challenge and receive tips about how to add green time to their daily life.

 

Not started yet? Not to worry! Decide on your own time frame --30 days in a row anytime is a worthy challenge and a prescription for better health and well-being! It's a great fit with walk-to-school programs and daily physical activity plans.

 

EcoSchools Section 1: Question 1.1; Section 5: Question 5.5 

 

We've all heard that "it takes a whole village to raise a child." Anyone happening upon Ancaster PS on the snowy, windy morning of Saturday April 20th would have seen a whole "village" at work to create an outdoor classroom and planter garden--teams of adults and children loading and spreading mulch on the outdoor classroom 'floor,' ferrying soil from a big pile to be shovelled into planters (made by Bombardier workers out of factory packing cases), fastening individual decorated tiles on the fence (220--all drilled and prepared for painting and mounting by the CAW Bombardier workers). Indoors--more planters were being painted in the gym (paint supplied by Home Depot and CIL paints) and the halls were lined with drawings and paintings depicting students' ideas for their outdoor classroom. Bombardier Aerospace contributed funding and more--sponsoring a poster contest and selling to their staff Earth Day buttons created by two grade 4/5 students (see sidebar image!) to commemorate the event.

 

Ancester's proud planting crew

The whole story of the connections made through this project is too big to fit in the newsletter, but it is thriving because parent Hopi Martin, co-EcoSchools teacher reps Elisa Bisgould-Menendian and Christine Mills-McCulligh, head caretaker Russell Fitchett, and the school's very supportive principal Elizabeth Bell, were joined by other staff and parents to lend a hand. AND the principal and teachers made sure that all students had a say in it along the way! We look forward to hearing about your next steps. Congratulations all!

  

EcoSchools Section 4: Question 4.7; Section 5: Question 5.7 

 

This wasn't the best year for schools to take up Deb Moffet's "I will if you will" Earth Hour dare to dance down Yonge Street. Here are three photo entries that we received:

• Everyone at Blantyre PS school used Earth Hour as a springboard to go "beyond the hour" at home. Each student from kindergarten to grade 8 wrote out an "I will if you will" challenge to spur environmental action in family life. Thanks to Dana Magyar-Brown for this submission. What a great way to multiply the impact of a single hour! 

• ON Friday March 22, the silence and stillness of Earth Hour descended upon the halls at Dennis Avenue PS. From 2-3 pm all lights were turned off, and all computers, Smartboards, tape recorders, pencil sharpeners, and microwaves were unplugged. Merci beaucoup to Donna Kowalchuk for this entry. Bravo! Brava everyone!  

• At 1:30 pm on TDSB's Earth Hour day, each classroom teacher at Cresthaven PS visited students in another class to read and discuss a book with an environmental topic. All lights were already turned out, meaning that Earth Hour started early. After recess, students continued with Earth Hour activities in their own classrooms from 2-3 pm. What a wonderful yet simple way to build whole school involvement! Thanks to Nancy Gillis for sharing this story and photo.

Thanks from Deb!

Deb decided that she'd join the large community tree-planting effort (40 trees!) at Alexander Park in downtown Toronto as a way to say thanks to participating schools. Maybe the Yonge Street dance will happen next year! We'll keep you posted.

On Earth Day, the government of Canada and the Alberta government announced a new website devoted to the oil sands It is so comforting in its tone that one instructional leader reported feeling "a sigh of relief, knowing that everything is being taken care of." Because it was on CBC radio national news, it got a lot of attention. The oil sands, also described as the tar sands, have never been far from the news, with the steady critique of NASA's Dr. James Hansen among many other climate scientists, and most recently former US Vice-President Al Gore who appears with the Globe and Mail's Doug Saunders at Ryerson University tomorrow night. This morning's Globe and Mail carries Sean Silcoff's front-page story "Ottawa strikes back at Gore's remarks on oil sands as 'open sewer.' "  

 

This latest flurry of comment on such an important Canadian story seems worth a mention here. Over the years teachers have reported on how teaching environmental education comes alive in their classrooms when they delve into top-of-mind news stories. Lots of challenges too, but we know that teachers handle these current events in an even-handed way that provides lots of critical thinking opportunities for students. We'd love to share any resources you've discovered (or developed yourselves) to help spread this vital part of our students' education. Please write to us!  

 

Happy Spring! 

Very best wishes

 

The EcoSchools Communication Team
Eleanor Dudar, Jenn Vetter, Diana Suzuki, and Akash Patel