The following list is a work in progress. Ideas have been taken from other schools, our own staff and the green team. The intention of providing such a list is to give teachers some ideas of issues/projects they may want to incorporate into their curriculum. We would like to encourage teachers to "sign up" to incorporate one of the issues/topics/activities in their course curriculum. Once a teacher has done so, we would love to keep a record of all that Banting is accomplishing to make the school a healthier place to learn. Perhaps you already include "green" activities in your course curriculum. For example, you may be a drama teacher that assigns a tableaux project where each scene must depict a pressing environmental issue. You may be an English teacher that has your students work on a letter to local politicians about a local environmental concern. As a shop teacher, you may be teaching your classes about non toxic alternatives to products or perhaps you collect old batteries and recycle them. If so...no matter what you teach, we want to hear it and celebrate your successes!
Just send us an email and let us know!
Issues/Ideas/Activities for your courses:
Global Warming/Pollution/Depletion of Natural Resources
- Water bottle campaign—Richard Pearson is a contact
- Encourage Use of Refillable Mugs
- Anti-Idling Campaign
- Tree planting
- Petition board/write letters to get cafeteria to use reusable dishes
- determine the long-term cost of this change—will it be cheaper? What about the environmental costs?
- Work on eliminating disposable plates/cups in schools
- Energy audits of student homes
- Research eating locally
o where are the local famer’s markets—map it and post it on a prominent wall
o bring in guest speakers—eg. local farmers
- Alternative fuels for cars
o study on biodiesel, hybrid, solar, electric—share results with rest of student body
o bring people in to do a display and show students for example a solar car
- A school challenge to reduce energy—starts at the beginning of the year and monitor how we are doing each month—with the money saved buy something for the student body—eg. Ping pong tables
- Calculating carbon footprint
- Calculating Environmental footprint
- Solar Panel projects – install some in the school with students
- Plant Native Plants
How does living greener make us healthier?
-Walk/Ride your bike to school (the walking school bus)
-Bike rack initiative
-Waste audits on local businesses and provide suggestions for improvement
Encourage meat alternatives
- healthier
- reduces pollution, carbon footprint, clear cutting
Environmental Symposium (Careers/CO-op?)
- Showcase environmental businesses and initiatives Review a book such as, "Green Careers
you can make money and Save The Planet". Author, Jennifer Power Scott
Local Community Action-
-Green local businesses (letter writing campaigns)
-Waste audits on local businesses and provide suggestions for improvement
Geo-Politics Unit
- eg. Trading fresh water
- students research the main issues on the Council of Canadians (allows students to sign petitions and be active citizens)
-Tar Sands
-Letter writing campaigns
Public Health:
Clean Air
Clean water:
Importance of water-
-Storm water run-off
-sewer overflows
-what we put on our properties…wasp poison etc
-medications flushed down our toilets and into our systems
-paint brushes…washing them and where it drains…
-Mercury levels in our water
Possible projects:
-Have your student’s research and make the ingredients for green cleaning products
- Have your student’s research and make the ingredients for personal cleaning products
-The super bowl flush (have students research how much water gets flushed down the toilets during the Super bowl commercial breaks.
-Tour a water treatment plant
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-Invite the watershed on Wheels travelling road show from Lake St. George
-25 ways to save water campaign www.eartheasy.com/live_water-savings.htm
-Toxics
Biodiversity—Fragile Ecosystems—Endangered Species
-The Importance of Bees
-Sustainable fisheries ranking
-Watch Shark water
-Research Dolphin safe tuna
-Get the facts on Whales
-Wild fish vs farmed fish
Loss of Farmland-
Municipal issues…how can we encourage locals to protect our farmland?
-The green belt
Soil Erosion, Desertification, Salinization
Deforestation
- Tree planting
- Encourage school to only use FSC certified products (building materials, paper,
etc)
- paper projects for students—piles of recycled paper in each classroom for use
- good on one side paper used for printing, copying
- Print one sided handouts as double sided half sheets – class project to campaign teachers to do this
-endangered/extinct trees…what are they and re-introduce
- School brochure or school newspaper with an environmental section providing information on any of these issues
Use of pesticides/herbicides
- effects on ecosystems
- effects on water
- effect on aquatic life
- have students research the dirty dozen food list—worst foods for pesticides
*** Think globally and eat locally
Waste/Recycling/Reusing
- Waste audit on composting that is not being done at school – weigh it
- how much in CO2? How much in costs to transport this unnecessary names
- Wednesdays garbageless lunch days—tickets for a draw
Starting Greener Initiatives/organizations in the Community (eg. Churches, teams)
Encourage students to use fair trade products
- education, fair trade fair (buy goods)
Thrift Shop/recycled materials/re-used and re-designed t-shirt fashion show
Natural Heritage projects involving actual research
Math ideas:
-Christmas bird counts
Ice flow reports
Careers/CO-op:
Research fresh air careers
Research environmental job prospects (green collar jobs)
Make solar ovens and raise money for a foundation that makes and provides solar ovens for underdeveloped countries (for example, doctors without borders)
English:
-Environmental themed short story units and novels
-Join one million acts of green
-Letter writing campaigns surrounding an environmental issue
-Letter writing campaign to parents about changing bad habits
-Environmental movie bank with worksheets-make one and put it into the common folder
-Construct a Green Common Folder
Shop:
-Build an outdoor classroom for teachers to sign-out the way computer labs are for classes.
-Build an outdoor games area to encourage healthy activities such as a scrabble board
