What can I do...

We are so very fortunate to have CHOICES about what resources we can conserve. So many countries cannot imagine trying to use less of anything when they have nothing to use in the first place. Water is a seemingly abundant resource here in Ontario (except for farmers during droughts) and we think very little about how much we use. Recent statistics show that Canadians use, on average, 329 litres of water per day. The UN has determined that only 50 litres per day is required for humans to exist and remain healthy - that includes drinking and washing but excludes agriculture. For those of you that are math shy that means we are using more than 5 times what we need. So where does it go? Most of it goes down the drain when we flush, brush and wash - in fact more than 80% of the water Canadians use is simply wasted and not even used for drinking or washing. Meanwhile, in some countries, children cannot attend school because they have to walk so far away to get water that it takes them all day. I guess that is why I am taking to heart the handmade sign that used to hang above the toilet at my cottage, "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down". Gross, but it saves a lot of water.

How Do You Get Rid of ALL THAT TRASH?!!

Trash, garbage, waste - it's all just a big messy problem! It costs money to create it, use it and then dispose of it so WHY do we make so much of it? Part of it can't be helped I suppose. I still haven't found a way to buy yoghurt, sour cream, etc. without buying the plastic container it comes in. I try to buy my meat from a butcher that will put it directly into my own container from home or if I forget, butcher paper. I really make a concerted effort to choose products with minimal packaging and not use plastic bags but c'mon! How much can we avoid when we don't have a lot of choice? Here's the even bigger dilemma...how do you convince an entire school to change its habits and bring litterless lunches? Let us know what you have done, tried, given up on, had success with! I've been asked for help so here's OUR chance to help each other. Click on "Comments" below this blog entry and help your fellow colleagues by telling us what you do at your school.

International Walk to School Day Success!

It was a bit of an undertaking - fear of liability and losing students along the way, not wishing to walk in the rain, etc. but we did it! FINALLY after 3 years of trying to organize a safe "walk to school day" we managed to get 63% of our kids to walk to school. I had to corner some of the staff but thankfully they were willing and cheerful participants and helped to walk our kids safely to school today. It still needs a bit of tweaking but we seemed to have found a way to make it happen.
Because so many of our kids are bussed from Daycares we had to find a way to have them participate. The daycares involved were very supportive and one staff member even walked with us! They became the starting points of 3 different routes. For those kids that lived beyond those points we encouraged parents to walk or drive them to meet us and walk the rest of the way as part of our "walking school buses". The routes were designed to create catchment areas where many children that lived between the starting points and the school could join up with the 'bus" en route. We had the support of some of our parents too. A notice was put in the school newsletter and after no response our Parent Council sent out an email which managed to entice a few parents.

FRUSTRATION!

How can I encourage educators to check out our webpage?
What can we do to entice, seduce, bribe? teachers and administrators to vote on our weekly polls and send comments to our blog? Everything is anonymous so you are free to speak your mind and we welcome constructive criticism and helpful suggestions. Do you have any?

The First Weeks of the New School Year

As I get to know my students I am thankful for what seems like a calm class. Do you hear that noise? That's me knocking on wood. I have had 2 years in a row of very challenging students and with this project to do on top of everything else, I am thankful for this group. I think this project will be all the challenge I need this year. Is it just me or does anyone else feel the deadline noose tightening around their necks? I've completed 2 deadlines already and have 2 more looming in the next 3 weeks. And report cards, dare I say it, are already creeping into my deadline consciousness. Yikes! Maybe I will make that a poll question... how many of you feel the strain of teaching when so many deadlines are placed on your shoulders? I guess you'll have to check in regularly enough to see if that poll question pops up.
Hope everyone is blessed with a great bunch of students and I hope every student is blessed with a teacher as good as you!

Welcome Back!

After a summer of rain, we need to question if the rain was really all that bad if we put it in an environmental perspective... I don't think I had to water any of my outdoor plants this summer at all. But if you are a weekend warrior and spent most of them up in cottage country you may feel that it was indeed that bad. It seemed to rain just about every weekend this summer.
The summer seems to have flown by and we are heading into a brand new school year full of new challenges and new rewards. One of the new challenges in Ontario is the new Environmental Education aspect to the curriculum. Are you prepared? Are you excited? Are you wondering where to start? Check in to our our blog each week as we share ideas and comments about teaching environmental education.
All the best for a successful school year!

Free Stuff!

No...sorry...I'm not in a position to give away free stuff but there are many environmental organizations out there that do. Yesterday I received a free Earth Hour t-shirt from WWF (they were selling for $45 back in March!) all because I have signed up for their FREE teaching resources and filled out their end of school year survey. Many of the organizations listed to the right on this blog page provide excellent teaching resources and because they are committed to helping teachers they are always asking for feedback. To show their gratitude some of them have draws or offers for freebies and prizes! I use most of the prizes as rewards for the kids on my ecoteam but I'm keeping the t-shirt. :)

Summer Vay-Kay is finally here!

Now that the kids are gone and after a week of filing, sorting, purging, my classroom is returned to state of order and neatness that it lacked this past year. All it takes is one rushed packing job and a broken filing cabinet to throw all good intentions of daily filing into chaos. Next year is looking much more promising. I am officially on summer break! YAY! But I fully intend to get some of this project started. With this blog the only tangible thing to show thus far I need to start getting my thoughts down on paper and make some concrete plans for the fall. I was unable to attend the OSEE Summer Institute this week and so I have nothing to contribute in the way of Environmental Ed information today. Sorry. Besides...is anyone reading this now that it is summer?

Summer Plans

Thank you so much to the 6 people that voted in the last poll. I know it's the end of the school year so taking the time to vote is greatly appreciated. Now that the last day of school is done and summer vacation will start for teachers this Friday, I am thinking of what I can accomplish with this blog over the summer. Not much... what I really need to do is to PLAN how to get more people to check out the blog in September. Any suggestions? Well that leads me to thought #1: Ask questions. Maybe that will encourage people to give us feedback. Thought #2: Have a website feature of the week. Maybe that will encourage people to check us out. I will start sending out weekly reminders to people so they will hopefully vote on the polls each week. Still trying to reach out to teachers across the province...now how to do that...
Any suggestions?
Have a great summer!

Report cards are DONE!

It's the time of year all teachers dread... report card season. So much to say in all of those little boxes and then spellcheck deletes half of your work!
The blog has not had many responses... only 8 teachers voted on our last poll and 2 principals.
It's all about advertising and I am trying to get the message out there but it IS report card season and at the end of the year, let's face it- no one's really interested. So, although we have a link on the school board's site (buried where no one can find it - I haven't found it yet), I've requested a little note in our school board bulletin on the ecopage, and I've invited 2 school boards from the north areas of the province to check us out... the response is, well, underwhelming to say the least. I will keep blogging over the summer, just in case anyone... anyone at all... is reading it. I am signed up for some Environmental P.D. with O.S.E.E. (Ontario Society for Environmental Education) in July and I will pass on what I glean from it here in the blog. Check out their link if you are interested. Anyway, just in case anyone IS actually checking in, I'm putting up a new poll for this week. Chances are we'll get less than 5 votes, if that. Polls will be repeated in the fall when hopefully we'll get a better response. Have a great summer...6 days left - but who's counting?

Administrators want to have their say

Although we were planning to ask Administrators questions as well as teachers starting next week, my principal was feeling a bit left out. So now there is a question for teachers and one for Principals. Please vote only in the appropriate poll and don't forget to encourage your staff and education colleagues to visit our site. Thanks!

Freedom of communication! Thanks I.T.!

Well, here goes!
This will be the first day of open communication with our teaching colleagues. It's our hope that as many people as possible will be willing to help out by checking in weekly for new polls and by contributing to the blog discussions.
If you have voted this week, please pass on the website to any of your teaching colleagues, Catholic or Public, and invite them to join our discussions.
Thanks everyone for your participation. Your help is greatly appreciated!

Cross your fingers!

The IT Dept. has been contacted and although they didn't say "yes" they did say they would look it over and get back to me. How long that takes I don't know, but since I didn't get a definite "no" I hold out hope. In the meantime, our schoolboard's "Head of Environmental Affairs" (she doesn't get an official title from our board b/c the board is not that progressive -yet-) has given us an email list of all the Ecoschool Reps and schools interested in the environment. Before I email everyone on the list, I am hoping to have a clear path to our blog site so that teachers can access it from school. If I.T. gets back to me and says "nope" then I will send it out and hope that people are willing to access the blog from home and participate in our online discussions. We need participation so if you are reading this - THANKS and please leave us your comments and thoughts.

"Page Blocked"

Ready... set... stop? It seems we have hit a slight snag in our blogging plans. Our schoolboard's protective screening seems to have a problem with our blog and therefore we can't access it from our school computers. What gives? Was it the word "ecology" that made them nervous? Well cross your fingers that a phone call to the IT Dept. will release us from this bond of censorship (that does have its purposes mind you). In the meantime, we'll have to ask our colleagues to check out our blog from home but I'm not sure they will. 4 days left to vote...no votes yet...I guess we'll have to reset the question but hopefully we'll get more than just a few votes from people we already know are teaching environmental ed. We want to find the people that aren't and give them a hand to do it and have fun with it.

Is it just one more thing to teach?

So many of us struggle just to get through the curriculum as it is without having to worry about adding something like Environmental Education on top of it all, but in case you haven't had a chance to look at the new Science Curriculum for Ontario, ecological thinking is now tied directly to the science curriculum so you'll have to teach it next year. What we'd like to know is how many people are already teaching it now and how are you doing it? Have you been teaching it in other KLA's (Key Learning Areas) or as a part of your own philosophies?

In the Beginning...

This is a shout out to our fellow TLLP participants "Here we go... now what?"
Halfway through our second day of this workshop my partner and I are really excited to get started. So to show we are taking advantage of what we have learned we have created our blog and it is just the first step in our commitment to communication.
We wish all of you the best of success with your projects and we hope to hear from you!