We started off our year by cleaning up a flowerbed. We wanted to plant spring flowers so we planted a variety of perennial bulbs. We learned practical gardening skills and even learned how to use a push mower!

After watching the video "Happy Birthday" presented by Green Kids Inc., we got together to brainstorm some of the current environmental issues that we are facing today. We created a list of suggestions for ways to encourage people to eat organic/natural foods, buy products with less packaging and things students could do to get companies to package products in more environmentally-friendly ways.

We were able to invite a lot of environmental experts to our school this year. They taught us about paper, water and making environmentally-friendly choices when shopping. We also continued our paper recycling program. Every student in Grade 4, 5 and 6 got to take a turn helping. We also learned about reusing paper and decided that we should try to make our own paper. It was messy, but fun!

For Earth Day we had Junior High students present workshops to everyone in our school. We also got to make "Garbage Art" (sculptures that we made from recycled materials). This was very fun and we were even able to showcase our artwork in the Library. We also enjoyed the School and Community Cleanup that we participated in with "Take Pride Winnipeg". We got to assemble and distribute all of the materials needed to make our cleanup day a success. We also held an Earth Day poster contest. The focus of our posters was the "4 R´s" and Water and Energy Conservation. Two of our winners went on to win at the Winnipeg competition.

Lastly, to keep the environmental spirit going all year long, we put environmental tips and ideas in all of our newsletters to try and encourage people to recycle and consume less. Around Christmastime, we sent out our Christmas tips – reminding students and parents to reuse Christmas cards or send them to the school so that we could reuse them, as well as reducing wrapping paper quantities and purchasing products with less packaging.

N. Dzeoba-Macklem