Eco Team
Visit our Eco page often to see what our Eco Club is up to in our work.
We're guided by the words of Dr. Jane Goodall: "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."
2019/2020
We're ready for another year of trying to make Eco Change. Our theme this year is making a plan to Create Lasting Change. This means we want to get people to change some habits but not just while at school - EVERYWHERE. For example, it would be no good to talk about healthy eating and eating healthy snacks at school but then going home and eating junk food every night! Same for the Environment. We want to like our goal at school at home.
So our first step is to ask you to fill out our start of year Eco Google Doc.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_g-AsKplKPJzPXkf2VyhR0_LYJjF5glfewFhU20EWeE/edit
Once we have your ideas from this, we'll start planning out our two major campaigns.
Looking forward to reading your ideas.
The article below will be the basis for our next meeting on Nov 18. Your job is to come up with 3 points that you want to discuss and decide how we want to apply this to our school.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/plastic-bottles-1.5341617
Nov 25
We had a good meeting about our plans to take our learning around the plastic bottles issue and move forward. Here are our next steps.
1. Decide on how we will talk to people at the local level (our school and parents).
2. Decide how to share our learning at the mid level - school board (principal meetings and elimination of water bottles at ALL schools)
3. Decide if you want to take what you have learned to the government level.
First steps....Develop a really good presentation that wows people. It should include a riveting video (like the Prince EA one). Maybe we throw in our "I am the Earth Song." And then hit people with facts (like the ones in the article) but also about plastic water bottle use and plastics in the ocean and how we end up consuming them as well. We have the opportunity to do something positive here. Let's make a difference.
Remember, our two campaigns for the year are ....
Waste Free - (packaging elimination!)
Plastics reduction (ban all water bottles!)
Next meeting Dec 2 or Dec 9
Jan was the start of our Eco presentation work and we were thrilled to present first to our school, then our parent community and most recently the Director of Education!
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2018/2019
Sept 10
We had our first meeting today and talked about the key idea of
What if Everybody Did That?
Our first google doc of the year is pasted below for you to complete.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LnyukxfuqMdbgQE2Hd_PTa33PL3L6KwxSvZf9Gn-piA/edit
An article you may find interesting is below
Nov 8
After trying to get our school to reduce waste and teaching about waste diversion, we did our first waste audit this year (yes, we should have done one BEFORE our campaign started!). The results were decent. Our garbage for the day yesterday was only 3.3 kg. Our recycling for the day yesterday was 4.9 kg. We didn't measure our compost but maybe next waste audit.
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Main problem that's still there is the wrong stuff in the wrong place. Paper towels.....GREEN bin. Paper and juice boxes....BLUE bin. And water bottles.....NOWHERE! We don't want to see em!
November's campaign is the elimination of Water bottles. It starts with the water bottle taste test challenge!
Eco team, YOUR job if you want to help make a difference
1. Bring two cups to school on Monday for our initial taste test.
2. Come up with some facts on why water bottles are NOT good for the environment.
3. If you're REALLY motivated, come up with a pa ad to talk about why you shouldn't use bottled water and why tap water is the way to go.
Here are some great facts to get you started
The next link is a Canadian Company but looks like they may be selling something. The facts are still good.
To my Gr. 8 leaders.... remember that we're going to start talking about our What if Everybody Did That? presentation next Monday as well.
Nov 12
Our taste test happened. The results are in. Overwhelmingly the students chose tap water. Interview night, it's on to the parents.
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Next step was getting the parents to try the taste test.
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Jan 28, 2019
We've tackled packaging waste. Now it's time to tackle textile waste. Too much clothing gets thrown out and that makes no sense to us. Fashion takes action is planning a clothing swap with our eco team. Learn more here.
Two missions ahead for you.
1. Start considering a Beyond the Classroom eco trip. What ideas do you have for us to end up somewhere educational and eco. So far, we have...
Yorkdale Mall's Eco food court - zero waste!
Bare Market Store in Toronto.
What other ideas do you have? Remember we want to learn from experts so the idea is to go somewhere where someone can speak to us.
2. Our Whole School Eco Day is on June 3.
So far our ideas are:
Outdoor classroom blessing
Each eco team member says at the blessing "We should care for the earth because...."
Each eco team member should also talk about one personal change they have made since joining the eco team.
We are aiming for 100% waste free lunches on June 3. How do you want to advertise and encourage this. Mrs. Stoner won't like a reward system but maybe waste free gummi worms?!
PA ads will be needed.
Maybe an eco demonstation yet again - what goes in what bin. Heavy on the guilt for those who STILL put paper towels in the garbage?
Other ideas....
If you've read this far, we encourage you to check out our Eco Beyond the Classroom Event. A fantastic leaning experience.
We hope to paste some pictures from Fast Fashion as well.
June 3 was our whole school eco day.
Pictures to follow but here's the layout.
9-920
Start with prayer
Eco reading - some great passages here Barb. If
you have something else, I’ll use some of these for the eco
meditation https://www.learnreligions.com/bible-verses-about-protecting-the-environment-712753
Eco Song – I am the earth
Eco meditation (3 minutes of closed eyes reflection)
Eco talk about stuff – reduce stuff, reduce footprint. Chloe
as an example vegan? One small step. What will YOU do.
Straws, divert, get rid of stuff don’t BUY stuff. Make a
change for earth
End with song – I got the whole world in our hand
Following our assembly, we attended an eco movie at the Science Centre and then headed to Wilket Creek for a waste free picnic and immerersion in nature. Every student was challenged to come up with a way to make a personal difference and to come let me know about it. Congrats to Selena in Gr. 7 for finding me today and committing to reduce the packaging in her lunch and to Mrs. Jamjekian for trying to get her family to reduce reliance on plastic water bottles. If everyone makes a change...
Our final event is a visit by Eco Schools Ontario on June 12 at 8 am - just before we leave for our end of year Gr. 6-8 Kingston/Ottawa trip. Another packed day but we wouldn't have it any other way at St .Sylvester!
Eco team, make sure you add in your thoughts to our padlet.
https://padlet.com/StSylvester/ecoteam
2017/2018
First thing is our opening survey - that is eco friendly!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/109uxsFzPbfteBv5RQt52oRJwHeNcsoBsCBuy2ncsI9M/edit
Students, if you need Moms and Dads or brothers or sisters to help you type in your answer, that's fine. All answers are due by Wednesday morning. Thanks for considering joining our eco club.
Mr. Fernandes
We've had our second meeting and we're working on our first campaign now.
Add your ideas to the google doc below.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1OvKJP7xCgp_56iv2Ailxx11TUWSt7avcBKdADu1qVRw/edit
Meeting #3 and we've decided to start making PA announcements to let people know how to reduce waste for October
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/15M77daltjSeOmr83ewTLet-xoJd4GXtGFZU2i0fveQ0/edit
Waste free week is NEXT week (Oct 16-20). At our meeting today, we agreed that you will be telling your class HOW to go a week without garbage cans and that's our plan.
Remember to track your own personal garbage use at home starting next week. Amazing how much waste we create.
A google doc will be here by the weekend if you want to start tracking your waste.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1lB_2wkAKHXWzdYz3T6dO7ePYtlj0z7BoMJwGXgX_nKg/edit Don't start filling this in until Monday, Oct 16 and remember - it's for anything you put in your home garbage.
We're onto our next campaign. Rethink what you drink. The goal is to get rid of all disposable water bottles and even most juice boxes. You can add your thoughts to the google doc below.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YxzOjs8hm7Y6wLX93sreJGAPKM526NbDewNkozef7jA/edit
Our paper towel campaign is in full swing. The goal is to reduce how many paper towels each class uses.
January 2018
Time to review and plan ahead.
To this point, we have focused on reducing our waste (reusable containers, less ziplock bags, less aluminum foil); rethinking what we drink (reusable water bottles over juice boxes and ...ugh...disposable water bottles); finding alternatives to paper towels (reusable containers for food, hand dryers or hand towels for drying our hands)
On Jan 18 at our parent night, we're going to try and get parents to take a pledge for one, two or all three goals. Same goes for our school.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1KH_YnfrzIe6pqW16dTD-BqHL1808KT8StWeu2Uf6Rqw/edit
Starts with you eco team - spread the message and get others to sign on to our pledge.
Other areas we need to work on in the months ahead
- A lights out chart for the hallway to help people remember to turn off their lights
- an article in our community newspaper about making small changes
St. Sylvester Newspaper 2018 FINAL Edit.pdf
april 2018 Info from St. Sylvester.pdf
- work on presentation for literacy night and principals' meeting - get other schools to sign our eco pledge
- Mrs. Stoner to help get our food garden going
Science Centre Eco members, please fill out the google doc below by this Wednesday. It's kind of like your ticket to go on Thursday!
Science Centre Eco Members - there's a post survey to fill out from the conference. It's pasted below
Final Eco wrap up. What small steps have YOU taken this year and what do you still want to do next year.
Please fill this in eco team members by the end of April.