Monday, December 2, 2013

November's Wast Free Lunch Week

November 25th to 29th was Humewood's first waste free lunch week of the school year. HEAT, Humewood's Eco Action Team, is going to focus its efforts on promoting waste free lunches for one week each month for the rest of the school year.

The Eco Action Team began promoting the waste free lunch program two weeks before the 25th by creating posters, making announcements, and by putting together a display in the foyer of the school for parents night to help parents understand the initiative and support it. With the start of the waste free lunch program the team began by weighing and auditing the lunch room waste a week before our initiative started, so that we had a baseline for comparison for our waste free lunch weeks in order for us to be able to measure our progress. The students noticed that there was a great deal of recycling and fresh food waste that made its way into the garbage and thus added to our overall refuse weight.  Our plan of action is to create signage for students so that they can understand how to most appropriately dispose of waste, for example putting their juice boxes in the recycling instead of the garbage can.

Our kick off waste free lunch week was a success as students started to change the mechanisms with which they brought their lunches and even though we are looking to see improvements during our next weeks we have seen a reduction in waste. We think more communication and clearer signage will truly help our school make a difference.
We saw small changes in behaviour like one student in our kindergarten program that switched from plastic wrapped sandwiches to using a reusable container. It may not have been our biggest victory, but it was a victory, and that helps to inspire us to make further improvements in the coming waste free lunch weeks!

For more ideas on how to create a waste free lunch consider these web-sites:
http://www.wastefreelunch.com/
http://www.wastefreelunches.org/ 
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/
http://www.epa.gov/osw/education/lunch.htm

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Aster Award Winner!!!

As some of you may or may not know our school has be part of an extensive 4 year study into Toronto's urban bee population. I know that some of you might be thinking "bees at a school, that's crazy!" but not to worry these aren't the kind of bees that will sting you.

PhD candidate Scott MacIvor has been conducting his research for 4 years now to find out which kinds of bees have adapted to Toronto's urban landscape and which ones are being choked out. Bees play a very important role as pollinators, without them our grocery stores, famers' markets, and gardens would look very different.

I wanted to write to his post for two reasons. The first reason is to thank Scott for having our school as part of the study and giving up his own time to talk with our students about his research and the importance of bees in our ecosystems. The second reason is to congratulate him on winning the Toronto Botanical Garden's inaugural Aster Award for his hard work and dedication! He will be receiving this award along side Edward Burtynsky, whom you my remember from my previous post.

WAY TO GO SCOTT!!!


nest box
Scott MacIvor enjoying the fruits of his labour (year 1)

If you'd like to know more about Scott's research click on the link below:
http://torontoist.com/2013/05/does-toronto-need-more-wild-bees/

October Newsletter

October's newsletter is out: click here

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Water: Burtynsky & Ecological Literacy

At our school this year we have decided to take on the theme of water across the curriculum and the entire school as a way of promoting ecological literacy among our students. 
Recently in Toronto I was able to attend the opening of Edward Burtynsky's new photo exhibition, Water. It was a great conincidence that this exhibit happened to be displayed at the same time that I've been trying to wrap my head around activities that students from kindergarten to grade 8 could do around this massive theme, while at the same time linking it back to the Ontario curriculum in a meaningful way. 
Not only are these photographs massive, but I felt like they moved me in a massive way. It was increadible to see what an impact water has not only had on shaping our way of life, but also how we have shaped water. As well, to accompany this major photo exhibition Burtynsky and documentary film maker Jennifer Baichwal have released their second film, Watermark, which is currently in theatres. 
Looking forward to seeing this theme take shape in our school and really exploring the impact of water!


I've also included a few photographs from the Burtynsky exhibition below, but please check out his website for more of his amazing work from this show.