Fertile Grounds

By Bruce Gillespie

A new crop of unique school programs allow students to both learn about the environment and save it too

One of the first things you see upon entering the main doors of Scarborough’s Dr. Norman Bethune Collegiate Institute is the student-run recycling station. Just off to one side of the school’s massive commons area, the recycling station is where the 70-plus members of the Bethune Environmental Action Team (BEAT) sort through a wide range of detritus dropped off by staff and students.They collect everything from wine corks, which are donated to local Girl Guides for craft projects, to spent printer cartridges, which are returned to the manufacturer for a rebate (last year’s rebates totalled about $300). Down the hall and around the corner is a staff photocopy room, another place BEAT members spend a lot of their time before and after classes, sorting single-sided sheets of paper, which can be reused, from double-sided sheets that are ready for recycling. A notice on the wall reminds staff that only paper that is crumpled or contains staples, or confidential documents such as student information (and love notes, the students point out with a snicker), should go in the garbage. Everything else can be used again, one way or another.

The next stop on the tour of BEAT projects is the cafeteria, which bustles at lunchtime. In an effort to encourage more students to recycle their empty pop cans, the team replaced the large, blue bins that were rarely used with smaller, putty-coloured garbage cans, the kind normally seen at the end of driveways on garbage day. The only difference is that these garbage containers have holes the size of dinner plates cut into their lids so students can drop their cans in easily, without lifting a sticky lid or inhaling the fumes that come from within. “It was so smelly,” explains Grade 12 student Christina Lee-Chan.

It is an ingenious, if simple, solution, and one that only young people would think of. What’s more, it works, and the students have bags of recyclables they collect every day to prove it. This type of change and others like it have made the school a model for environmentalism in action and earned it a gold certification from the EcoSchools program of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). Now in its third year of certifying schools, the program is one of many new models popping up across the province that are designed to reduce soaring energy bills while helping kids become ecologically literate — a concept that not only includes teaching how nature works, but also the idea that everything on our planet is interconnected and that the choices we make, whether personal or societal, can affect the water, soil and air on which we depend.

It should come as no surprise that this push is a reaction to government cutbacks and rising energy costs. For most boards with programs similar to the TDSB’s, the impetus was saving money. The Upper Grand District School Board’s Energy W.I.S.E. program emerged from a retrofit project to reduce energy consumption at the board’s 71 schools three years ago. After working with a private company to upgrade the heating, lighting and water systems in its buildings to make them operate more efficiently, the board shifted its focus to changing how staff and students use the buildings. “The energy costs are more than $1 million for our board for one year, and it’s expected you can get five to 10 percent savings on that from behavioural changes, like if kids shut off the lights when they leave a room, shut off their computer monitors, that kind of thing,” explains Gregg Reekie, who is in charge of the board’s outdoor education program and chaired the Energy W.I.S.E. steering committee.“So, we wanted to address the behavioural component and get the schools and students involved in energy saving.”

A program in place at both the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board works the same way. Rose-Marie Batley, a retired superintendent with the Ottawa-Carleton board and now the executive director of EarthCARE, an organization that works with school boards to reduce their energy and waste costs, says as much as 10 percent of a school’s total utility costs is wasted through the behaviour of its occupants. “Five or six years ago when we started out, it was not uncommon for schools to leave 75 percent of their lights and computers on when they weren’t needed, overnight or even over the summer,” says Batley.

So one of EarthCARE’s main projects is Lights Off,Computer Off (LOCO), in which students conduct energy audits of their schools to see how many lights and computers are left on in rooms no one is using and whether blinds and drapes are closed after school hours to help retain heat. Under the guidance of a dedicated EarthCARE project manager, school teams work to reduce energy consumption by placing stickers on light switches and computers, reminding people to turn them off, and conducting spot checks. In 2003/04, the first year of the LOCO program, the Ottawa-Carleton board saved an estimated $938,700. In 2004/05, with 98.7 percent of its 149 schools taking part, the savings amounted to $1.08 million.

Pages: 1 2 3