Got Milkweed?

Help save the monarch butterfly and make Humewood Community School a more beautiful place.

As part of the Homegrown National Park Project, the David Suzuki Foundation will be selling milkweed plants for $5 each through its website (www.davidsuzuki.org/gotmilkweed) during April. Milkweed is the only plant that monarch butterflies lay their eggs on and the primary source of food for monarch caterpillars. Scientists throughout North America have identified milkweed planting as the most important action people can take to help support threatened monarch populations.

"Monarch butterflies are one of nature's true wonders, fluttering thousands of kilometres across North America despite weighing less than a paperclip," said Homegrown National Park Project team lead Jode Roberts. "Through the #gotmilkweed campaign we hope to inspire Torontonians to do their part to help the monarch by planting milkweed in their yards and on their balconies."

This winter, scientists raised alarms when numbers of monarchs overwintering in Mexico hit an all-time low. Severe weather and the virtual eradication of milkweed throughout much of their migratory path between Canada and Mexico have put the monarchs' epic migration back to Canada at risk.

Humewood wants to do its part to save the Monarch Butterfly and teach students the benefits of conservation within on our school grounds. During April you can order milkweed plants for $5 and it will be planted by students at Humewood as part of our naturalization project. Please make sure when you are entering your contact information when ordering that you select “make a purchase on behalf of an organization” and enter Humewood Community School.

Kool-Aid Jammers

I was sent this link the other day about a fundraising program for schools. In a nut shell, the school collects Kool-Aid Jammers and Del Monte terra packs to receive 2cents for each one collected. That equals 20 dollars for every thousand collected. TerraCycle then uses the drink pouches to make tote bags, pencil case, etc.

Maybe this is something that our school should do?
I thought about it and realized that this recycling program doesn't really deal with the root of the problem. Our students should be bringing drinks to school in reusable containers. Also, there is little to no nutritional value in any of these drinks. 1 pouch (200ml) contains 24 grams of sugar, that's a little less than 6 teaspoons of sugar mixed with a little water. That's 90 empty calories of sugar water, how do think that would affect your ability to learn? Once all of these drink pouches have been collect they have to be driven to a UPS pick-up location where, I can only assume, they take another drive to a factory... seems like a lot of energy to recycle something that isn't good for so many reasons.

It would be nice to be part of this fundraising campaign, but I don't want to encourage students to consume a product and think that they're doing something good. How about people don't buy them and then we don't have to worry about how to recycle them or worry about taking up space in land fills?