Durham board has 16 certified locations
Sep 26, 2008 - 04:30 AM
By Crystal Crimi
DURHAM -- Green equals gold, silver and bronze for 16 Durham Catholic schools.
Qualifying EcoSchools were presented their certification during a recognition ceremony at the Durham Catholic District School Board's Sept. 22 meeting.
"I'd like to thank all of the schools that were involved," said Kathy LeFort, the trustee for Brock, Scugog, and Uxbridge. She also mentioned the lead principals in the projects.
At the meeting, Sydney Szagala, a student at Oshawa's St. Christopher school, talked about her experience in the EcoSchool program and how enjoyable it was. As a school community, they planted five trees.
"I love the earth but I know it needs work," Sydney said.
Tish Sheppard, the board's program consultant for the arts, presented a slideshow illustrating different EcoSchool initiatives. Pictures showed posters encouraging students to turn off computers, a 'Water gives us life' board, and a boy flexing his muscle with 'zero waste' written on one of his biceps.
Ms. Sheppard also spoke of the program's applicability to Roman Catholic faith and how in 1990, Pope John Paul said the ecological crisis was the responsibility of everyone.
Most schools focused on energy and waste minimization because those come with the easiest and fastest results, she said. School greening wasn't one many schools tackled this year.
Being an EcoSchool includes establishing an eco-team, completing an eco-review, developing an action plan for things such as turning off computers, then implementing it through school announcements, rewards systems, monitoring and evaluating, and creating a binder with all of their achievements to send to Ontario EcoSchools.
"Our advice to the schools was take it slow," Ms. Sheppard said.
Many schools may have started and enjoyed the EcoSchool tasks, but didn't apply for certification this year.
Ontario EcoSchools is an environmental education program that provides environmental education resources and focuses on energy conservation, waste minimization, ecological literacy, and school ground greening.
The program recognizes the achievements of participating schools through a certification process that awards a gold, silver or bronze level of achievement.
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