Eco-Posters

Today the Eco-Club began working on the final copies of our posters for the March 4th assembly.
The students seem to be having a lot fun coming up with ideas and creating posters to help other students and our school become more green.
I hope there will be a good turn out for the assembly. Not only are the posters going to be displayed, but the Wee-Cyclers have been working on a song and a brief skit about littering. I'm sure that it will be really cute!
The Eco-Club will present the entire school with our bronze Eco-schools certification sticker from last year. I really want to take this chance to get students pumped about going for gold this year.
Litter and lunch time waste are a big problem at our school. With any luck students will start to think about where their waste should go: in a garbage can, recycling bin, or take it home for composting.

Tree Workshop

Tomorrow I'm going to a tree workshop being put on by Eco-Schools. I'm really looking forward to it. The last one was great. I've done all my homework and maybe we'll get a chance to update our tree tours with photos.
You should be able to find our school's tree tour if you type the school name into Google with the words "eco-schools tree tour".

I'm hoping to come back from this workshop with more activities to get students outside. I think that we're also going to get a tree cookie (a cross section of the trunk)

Seedy Saturday (Sunday)

Wow, what a busy and jam packed place the barns were on Sunday. I would have liked to have spent more time looking around and talking with vendors, but it was just way too packed for me.
It was great to see Garden Jane there. I first met her when I worked out in Scarborough, back when I first started teaching and got involved with Eco-Schools. Jane has a great program going on with beans and I hope to get in touch with her to find out more about it. Jane is the woman who gave me the recipe for seed balls.
While it's on my mind I'll have to remember to make seed balls with the Eco-Club for Easter and/or Mothers Day. That way students can go out with their families and drop balls all over the neighbourhood.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the main reason that I went to Seedy Sunday... to get seeds!!! There were tonnes of plants to choose from and lots of vendors. I was looking for plants that would either come up early in the season while students were still in school or late in the season when students have come back to school.
I managed to get some pumpkin seeds, chard, peas, and arugula. I can't help but think that maybe I should have tried to get some corn and have a Three Sisters section in the garden. I was also able to get native butterfly plants; they're in my freezer right now being tricked into thinking that they're in the ground ;)
I wonder if I can do the same thing with garlic?

Go Green: Climate Change Action Plan

The TDSB is taking a direction on climate change.
On Feb 3rd the TDSB's Board of Trustees approved the "Go Green: Climate Change Action Plan". I encourage everyone to read through this document to see what the school board has planned for the future. It outlines how the board is looking to reduce carbon emissions through the use of Solar PV systems, electric vehicles, waste pick up, and a very long term goal of market gardens.
It also includes what is already happening through the Eco-Schools program, which means that eco-literacy is still a big piece of the picture. There really isn't any point in doing this if we don't continue to educate our students about why being green is important.

Green Neighbours 21

Green Neighbours 21 is a local community group for ward 21 and just beyond. They are a group of volunteers helping their neighbours reduce home energy use.
This program is different from a home energy audit done by a certified auditor because its role is to compliment the energy audit process. They can help you arrange an energy audit, connect you with neighbours who have done similar work, offer you a list of contractors who have been used and rated by the member community, and most importantly calculate your actual energy savings.
They also offer tips on things that you can do to seal air leaks in your home. Air sealing and draft proofing can reduce your energy bill by as much as 20%.
I know it's a little late in the season for this information, but there are still many cold weeks ahead and there isn't much time to be part of this program (it wraps up this summer for evaluation).

Two posts in one day, who'd have thunk it?

Seedy Saturday... ON SUNDAY!!!

I was reminded to post this after I heard about it again on Metro Morning. I hope that it has doesn't get too busy after being on the CBC.
Seedy Sunday will be taking place this Sunday (Feb. 21st) at the Wychwood Barns, barn #2. Aside from a great chance to get native and heirloom seeds there will also be interesting workshops and presentations.
The day starts at 12:30pm, with the workshops starting at 1pm, and runs until 6pm. Looks like that will give me a half hour to get the seeds I want before spending the rest of the afternoon attending workshops. There is a suggested donation of $2 and they are still looking for volunteers.

I guess this means that I'll have to finalize a list of the plants to grow at the school this year. Any suggestions of plants you'd like to see?

Tapping Urban Trees

Not Far From the Tree is a local organization that you may have already heard about, or from, if you have a fruiting tree in your backyard. This organization started by picking fruit that would have otherwise gone to waste rotting on trees. They send volunteers to pick fruit from trees growing around the city with permission from the owners. 1/3 goes to the owner, 1/3 goes to the volunteers that picked the fruit, and the final 1/3 goes to a community organization.
They're always looking for volunteers and owners of fruiting trees ;)

I was excited to find out that they are now tapping local maple trees in Toronto. So if you have a maple tree in your backyard I urge you to get involved. You could end up with some great tasting maple syrup from your own backyard tree!!! If you don't have a tree that's okay, you can volunteer and still end up with some yummy syrup. Here's the link if you want to find out more information and take part in this great opportunity

Kool-Aid Jammers

I was sent this link the other day about a fundraising program for schools. In a nut shell, the school collects Kool-Aid Jammers and Del Monte terra packs to receive 2cents for each one collected. That equals 20 dollars for every thousand collected. TerraCycle then uses the drink pouches to make tote bags, pencil case, etc.

Maybe this is something that our school should do?
I thought about it and realized that this recycling program doesn't really deal with the root of the problem. Our students should be bringing drinks to school in reusable containers. Also, there is little to no nutritional value in any of these drinks. 1 pouch (200ml) contains 24 grams of sugar, that's a little less than 6 teaspoons of sugar mixed with a little water. That's 90 empty calories of sugar water, how do think that would affect your ability to learn? Once all of these drink pouches have been collect they have to be driven to a UPS pick-up location where, I can only assume, they take another drive to a factory... seems like a lot of energy to recycle something that isn't good for so many reasons.

It would be nice to be part of this fundraising campaign, but I don't want to encourage students to consume a product and think that they're doing something good. How about people don't buy them and then we don't have to worry about how to recycle them or worry about taking up space in land fills?

The P.I.N.E Project

Wow, here is a great organization in the West end of the city that is putting on extra-curricular programs for kids and their parents. They also host activities during the day for home schooled children.
The mission of PINE is to inspire healthy lifelong connections between people and nature through outdoor-based learning and play. They offer various activities that take place in High Park.

It seems like the cost of the program is donation based and works on a sliding scale.
There are no school programs offered yet, so I'll have to keep my fingers crossed... if only I could borrow some children just to check out what the programs are all about.

They are featured in the current issue of spacing magazine, but here is the link to their website.

Super Power Bloke - 5 Ways to Save the Planet

Here is a fun British video about global warming with 5 tips for you to do at home to reduce your carbon footprint

The Food Terminal

I caught wind of this CBC interview playing Sunday morning. Thankfully the CBC posts a lot of their content online so you can listen to it later or share it with other people.

Anita At The Food Terminal
Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010 | 06:00 AM AT
Anita Stewart
For Anita Stewart, LOCAL is where it's at. Local FOOD, that is. But finding FRESH local food at this time of the year can be a challenge. Unless you know where to look. And our culinary columnist DOES know. Anita joined guest host Karen Gordon to lift the lid on something called the Ontario Food Terminal.
Listen (runs 13:33) to their conversation.
And visit Anita's website to get up to date on all manner of food-related topics.

What Can I Recycle?

It seems like there is a lot of confusion out there about what you can and cannot put into the city recycling bins. It looks like the city has caught on to this and retooled their web page to make it easier to figure out what goes where.
Follow this link for more information.