EcoLeague 2010 - 2011 Success Stories!

Edenbrook Hill Public School

The Grade 3 class and the Eco Team at Edenbrook Hill Public School decided to take on an Action Project to tackle the issue of waste management and minimization. With EcoLeague funding, the students and their teachers decided to take on a vermicomposting initiative at their school to help make their lunches truly litterless. Here is what their teacher had to say about the class’ experience:

“We were amazed at how well the system set up and functioned. Our classroom compostables were devoured in days – like magic. The students became more and more brave, digging their hands into the newly formed soil. They excitedly returned from lunch with things that they probably should have eaten, but were excited to feed to their new worm friends. And as word spread to other classes via our weekly videos students from all over the school would come to see, help and add to our system. We look forward to carrying this project forward in years to come and to reaping the benefits as we add the new nutrient rich soil to our greened school yard.”   

- Ms. Crawford

Check out the amazing video that this class made documenting their experience with vermicomposting.

During this school year, LSF also funded composting/vermicomposting efforts at 13 other schools across Canada!

Woodlands Elementary (Woodlands, MB)

The grade 7/8 class at Woodlands Elementary School began their own sustainability project: The Litterless Lunch Cookbook. At the beginning of the year, the class preformed audits of the waste produced by the school at lunch time. The findings were that 60% of waste ended up in the garbage or recycling bin, while only 30% was reusable, and 10% compostable. The class challenged students to bring litterless lunches, rewarding those who did with cool reusable lunch bags!

The grade 7/8 class didn’t stop there. The students collected recipes for litterless lunches, and created their own cookbook including eco-tips, photos, and student artwork. The class sold their cookbook, generating $1100.00, which they put towards creating an outdoor classroom!

Kells Elementary (Montreal, Quebec)

Kells Elementary Green Committee started observing and researching local bird and bat species. They then contacted the CCFA (Centre de la Conservation de Faune Ailée) to order appropriate bird feeders, a bat box, and accessories (e.g. poles, squirrel guards). After the spring thaw, they were able to assemble and mount the feeders in our garden and waited only a few days to witness the arrival of cardinals, purple finches, gold finches, and other species of birds that had never been spotted near their school before. They wanted to attract local bird species and migratory birds (e.g. orioles) using specific feeders, as well as bats using bat boxes. They now have a small bird and bat sanctuary and all students are learning about the behaviour of the species visiting our school. Although the bats have not yet arrived, we expect to see them within the next year or two.

Mining the Carbon out of People’s Lifestyles: Action Projects

Pope John Paul II

Through the use of energy saver lightbulbs, students reduced their energy usage at home. With funding from LSF, each student received 3 additional lightbulbs to replace existing incandescent bulbs. The results of their energy conservation will be measured through a  follow up Energy Audit.

Bertha Shaw Public School

My Class promoted saving electricity at home by encouraging families to have one night a week where they do not use the television, video games, computer, etc. In order to do this they had a Family Game Night and attempted to track how many families in the school are participating and consequently how much energy is being saved. We tracked this over 1 month to help change some family routines for the better (in terms of electricity use). Since not all families maybe own board games/know how to play card games we initiated this plan by having a game night at school to teach people how to play different card games and to explain our rationale for the plan. Funds were used to purchase board games that the school could lend out.

Blessed John XXIII Catholic School

My grade 4/5 class was busy since last October working on various activities associated with energy conservation.  First of all, the students did an inventory of all of the electricity sources in the school library and our classroom. Then we used the kilowatt metres that were sent to us to find out how many watts were used by various electrical items like radios, fans, computers, hard drives, lights, overhead projectors. We learned about phantom power and the students are now very aware that when electrical items are plugged in, electricity is still being used. The students went home and did an energy audit at their homes. The students have been educating their parents to turn off lights and appliances when they are not in use at home and to figure out as a family how they can take measures to save electricity and lower their energy consumption. We have assigned students to check to see if the lights are turned off when we leave the classroom and radios and overhead projectors are turned off and unplugged when not in use in the classroom. We learned about power bares and the importance of turning the switch off on the power bar at night or at the end of the school day.

The students did excellent posters on saving electricity. The students gave presentations on their posters and the posters were hung in the hallway to educate the staff and students at our school about the importance of saving electricity whenever and wherever possible.

The students were delighted to receive the Philips twister lightbulbs. They took the lightbulbs home and were instructed to replace the bulbs in lamps with their new energy saving bulbs. The students were impressed that if they use the bulbs at home for up to three hours a day then the light bulbs will last for 9 years, until they are 19 years old. I have included letters to you that the students wrote about these light bulbs and I have included lessons that the students have learned from our energy audits.

Applecroft Public School

After our initial audit, the students in my grade 5 class decided they wanted to do an awareness campaign within the school. We are a silver/ gold level EcoSchool, so while many strides have been made in recent years, we can still do more. The students went around to each classroom and 'taught' a lesson about a) our audit system, b) why it is important to save energy and c) how each classroom can do this based on the outcome of our audit. They returned after two weeks in order to assess if changes had been made. The students provided a visual to remind each class of their specific goals, and they were  available to help make a plan for that classroom (as the 'student leaders'). The classrooms that were successful were given an Eco-prize for each participating student, such as dividers made of recycled paper, eco-friendly pens and pencils, and reusable water bottles.

St. Aidan Catholic School

Linden Park

Students brought in their used fluorescent light bulbs and to donate to the Orange Drop Bin located in our front foyer.  In return: for every 5 florescent light bulbs that a student brought in, they received a compact fluorescent (energy saving light bulb).

St Nicholas

Our eco-team went into classes to track the usage of lights in classrooms and teaching spaces. As an added incentive, they had a draw for the best classes for having their lights off and monitors off and use of natural light. Craw winners received prizes of reusable water bottles that are eco-friendly.

Robert Little

Students used a whirlpool electronic temperature logger to monitor and record temperature variations throughout school and used information to come up with a plan to control heat, reduce heat swings and turn the heat off at non-peak times. Students also installed timers for the fish tank

Southwold Public School

Students carried out a preliminary audit of energy waste, created posters, songs, and presented energy facts on the announcements that explain why we should reduce energy use. Students gave “green gotchas” to classrooms that were not “hogging” electricity when they did daily spot checks.  Class with most “Gotchas” at the end, won a class set of reusable water bottles. 

Sir John A. MacDonald Public School

The focus of this was to make students more aware of conserving electricity which they are - i.e. they turn off monitors, use natural light (even a student of mine wrote a rap for the school on being eco friendly - it was fantastic). 

This Rap was created by  a grade 6 student…

Prologue…

Look, If you had one shot,
And one opportunity,
To do something for the environment
Would you do it?  Or would you sit back and do nothin’…
Use natural lights when you can,
Walk to school,
Instead of driving your car or van,
It ain’t tough,
You only gotta walk,
if it’s close enough
Turn things off,
when they’re not in use
Lights, monitors, powerbars
and laptops too
Boomerang your lunch
Bring it in Tupperware
Keep garbage off the floor
For the earth; It’s only fair
Don’t go back to your old ways,
With garbage,
all over the place
It’s dumb and a bit of a waste
You make your class a big disgrace
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
If your going to the store
Ride your bicycle
Pick up garbage
and don’t litter
If you do your parents and teachers
Will get very bitter
So everyone
Pick up your garbage and waste,
And make the world,
a better place

Vaughan Willard Public School

My Grade 6 students thoroughly enjoyed conducting both the school and home electricity audits. I think it was an eye-opening experience for many of them, who - until the audit - had been unaware of just how much electricity their families were allowing to be wasted. When asked what resulted from the home audit, most students had the same answer: they are now making sure they turn off lights that are not needed. As well, students are more aware of vampire power, and are looking for ways to minimize that sort of usage/wastage.

Each student was given 3 CFL bulbs to take home. Most reported back that they replaced their incandescent bulbs with the new CFLs right away, excited to make a difference. Some mentioned that the light from the CFLs was too dim. One parent raised a concern about the mercury content in CFls, and printed me off a story of a family who faced a pretty inconvenient situation when a CFL bulb broke in their child's bedroom. It would have been great if this info could have been given during the LSF workshop so I could have addressed this matter with the students when we discussed the difference between CFLs and incandescent bulbs.

Finally, the students really enjoyed using the Kill-A-Watt metres. They wanted to test out the wattage of anything that had a plug! Not surprising, they were all shocked by the amount of electricity used by a hairdryer! I allowed students to sign out the metres to test out items at home. They all enjoyed this very much, and I believe it provided an important lesson in thinking about electricity, and not just using it.