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| Stephenville EcoKids tally up their results while participating in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. |
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The first activity we participated in this year was the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. This is our fifth year taking part in this program. Our focus was to keep the shorelines clean around Bay St. George and make it healthier for all of the bay inhabitants. Not only did this event enhance our learning environment, but it also got many of the parents in the community involved. We were able to record the amount and different types of litter and tally them in a table to incorporate math, science and language curriculum.
Last spring, our school started a School Yard Beautification program. We planted gardens and started a school-wide composting program. We also planted a vegetable garden at the front of our school, which we harvested this past fall. It was a great success. We hope that our compost program will teach students about conservation practices and about reducing waste. In the future, we hope to promote this program to our community members.
Our school has a very active, year-long recycling program. We are all involved in collecting and recycling drink containers. Both teachers and students manage the blue bins that are in each classroom. We also have Recycling Blitzes twice a year to encourage more recycling. We track each class´s progress on our bulletin board display and provide incentive prizes for classrooms with the most recycled goods. We hope, however, that the ultimate incentive for teachers and students is that we are preserving the environment for today and the future.
During Earth Day this year we decided to run a litterless lunch day. Each student had to bring their lunches in reusable containers. At the end of the day, our vice-principal weighed each bag of garbage to see which class had the least amount of waste. We are hoping to encourage more litterless lunch days in the future to reduce the amount of waste going into our landfills.
Other projects that are ongoing in our school are listed below:
- Barachois Pond Provincial Park Conservation Program
- Vegetable planting
- Environmentally-friendly birdfeeders
- Growing local food
Jill Benoit
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