Two Wellington County schools were featured on the first edition of Energize: EcoSchool Success Stories on the Ontario EcoSchools website.
“Ontario EcoSchools has existed for 11 years now and every year we work really hard to profile and bring light to the successes and engagement strategies of schools,” said executive director Elanor Waslander. “But this is the first time that we have partnered with the Ministry of Energy to feature schools in this way.”
The two schools that were chosen from the Upper Grand District School board were Erin Public School and Victoria Terrace Public School in Fergus.
“We looked at their certification history and what they’re doing in the EcoSchools program and both schools represented a really strong program with lots of support from the adult community and lots of participation from students,” Waslander said.
“They were exemplary in terms of the EcoSchools program when it’s running really, really well … and they had been stable and doing the program for quite some time.”
Victoria Terrace
Victoria Terrace was the only platinum level elementary EcoSchool in the board after last year’s certifications (the 2016 certification level has yet to be announced). The school had been gold certified since 2008.
“They are taking the next step in terms of deepening their EcoSchools program and the platinum level is really the highest level of achievement and it means that they have a strong eco team,” Waslander said.
Victoria Terrace principal Kim Kowch explained, “When you’re platinum it’s really all about being embedded in everything that you do.
“It’s not only just making sure that you’re doing the recycling and composting and those kinds of things, but it’s right in how things are being taught here, how kids interact, just their automaticity of you know walking out and turning off a light.
“But also of using their voices and student voice to be able to then pass that learning on to other people.”
Victoria Terrace has a unique approach to teaching environmentally-friendly practices through its school-wide inquiry program, which began two years ago.
The school first looked at waste, then water and this year it looked at energy.
“Each teacher took on a different renewable energy and then we had groups go to the different … places each of the five rotations,” explained Patsy Collier, school library and eco team co-lead.
“We had … geothermal, that’s like the earth’s core … plant energy here … wind energy and … water and solar energy…”
The energy inquiry is a two-step process that will be picked up next year and looked at more in depth.
“We did an art activity and some teachers did (a) poetry activity just to get [students] kind of going and then next year we want to take it further,” Collier said.
The overarching question addressed this year, and which will continue into next year, is “Can we survive on renewable energy?”
Waslander was a huge supporter of posing that question.
“A lot of adults in our communities don’t know that answer,” she said. “So it really creates an opportunity for exploration and creativity.”
In addition to the inquiry and day-to-day eco-friendly actions, the school also participated in the Plastic Bag Grab Challenge, which was initiated by the Ontario Recycling Council.
The students brought plastic bags that they had at home and the school collected nearly 1,000.
The school’s Grade 1/2 teacher took the project one step further and worked with her students to encourage the use of reusable bags instead.
“(To) show it’s not a good thing to have millions of plastic bags and what we need to encourage is reusable grocery bags,” Collier explained.
“She had a … big garage sale and bake sale in her class to raise money so we could buy every family a reusable [Victoria Terrace] grocery bag.”
Kowch explained the school doesn’t just promote eco-friendly activities because it’s an important life skill.
“We do this because … it’s our job as citizens of this town and this country and this world to do our part,” she said.
“And if we all take that attitude (that) it’s somebody else’s job then you know what? It’s not ever going to change and somebody down the road is going to be in some serious trouble.
“So it’s about engaging them to recognize that they can have that power to be the change …”
Erin
Erin Public School also has years of gold EcoSchool status, first being certified in 2011.
Waslander said it was Erin’s outreach that set the school apart.
“So Erin has really shown that they are committed to not only changing the culture within their school walls but then reaching beyond and engaging their community, which is just fantastic because it gives students real world experience,” Waslander said.
One of the big programs at Erin is the Water Rockers. Each year the students in Cathy Dykstra’s Grade 5 class take on the responsibilities of the environmental group.
They visit Erin’s downtown businesses and promote environmental awareness.
Over the years the Water Rockers have encouraged all of the downtown Erin businesses to be part of the Blue W program, where anyone with a reusable bottle can refill for free with tap water.
“Water Rockers is all about reducing waste in the school and being a part of reducing waste right across with everything and measuring it every week and double checking that the kids are sorting properly and being as literless as they can be and all that but we also turn off our lights,” Dykstra said.
For one hour once a month the school participates in an Earth hour.
Dykstra said next year the goal is to measure how much energy is saved by turning the lights off throughout the entire school for that hour.
Dykstra’s class recently entered the provincial Waste Free Lunch Challenge.
“We won that and that’s just weighing our garbage, our recycling and our composting for a week and sending in those numbers, plus adding in a couple of paragraphs about the neat eco things that we do,” she said.
For their prize the class received a set of Rubbermaid lunch containers.
“The kids are super excited to use them every day,” Dykstra said.
She said even the parents are on board with literless lunches.
“Parents are thankful because … life is busy so when we can kind of train the kids at being really good at sorting and really great to want to use the reusable bottles, want to ride their bikes every day, want to be literless everyday, they go home and they remind their parents,” she said.
“Some families have their own monthly Earth hour or weekly Earth hour at home and just have a family games time.”
Both Dykstra and Kowch said it is an honour to be chosen as one of the first schools to be featured, especially since they are from small communities.
“It was really neat that they chose little [Victoria Terrace] in Fergus, smallest school in Fergus and Erin, again another small community, and I think that was a very purposeful thing,” Kowch said.
“It’s important for the bigger community, Ontario, Canada, to recognize that really great things really do happen in small places and it doesn’t take much to start.”
Dykstra added, “It’s just trying to inspire other schools across the province that here are some neat ideas, pick and choose what might work for your own school so that we can all somehow … have more eco things going on in our building.”
For the feature visit http://www.ontarioecoschools.org/our-impact/stories.
