St. Patrick's High School striving for silver
Posted Dec 11, 2009 By Sheena Bolton
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EMC News The students, teachers and staff at St. Patrick's High School are trying to improve their school's environmental footprint in an effort to receive an Ontario EcoSchool silver certification.
Students, staff and teachers at St. Patrick's High School are working together to receive a silver EcoSchools certification. The project is spearheaded by the school's EcoTeam.
The school is focusing on three areas waste, energy and curriculum to better educate students and staff and help make a difference.
To help their efforts, the school recently created an EcoTeam, which is led by teacher Helen Zettle.
"We meet a minimum of once each month," said Ms. Zettle. "Our job is to look at the situation in the school and see what kind of initiative we can establish to help."
Teacher Katherine Martin is in charge of the Waste Busters group, which focuses on the amount of garbage the school produces.
"Under the EcoSchool certification there are a few pillars and one pillar is we need to gain points to eliminate waste," explained Ms. Martin. "We are looking at informing students about ways they can reduce their waste."
To do this, the group is trying to increase recycling in the school, collecting batteries, cellphone chargers and ink cartridges from going into the garbage and encouraging waste-free lunches on Fridays.
Teacher Dan Gajewski is in charge of the energy audit group, which looks at the amount of energy being wasted after the school day is finished. He explained that throughout the campaign, the group would complete random audits on particular classrooms to monitor the progress, noting that the main focus will be to encourage teachers and students to turn off lights and computers at the end of the day.
"So far we've only done one survey so we know where we are at," said Mr. Gajewski.
"We don't want to just go around and turn things off, we want (teachers and students) to make the decision for themselves."
Even with the campaign just getting off the ground, students at St. Patrick's have been very responsive to the program. There are three students on the EcoTeam Hiba Osman, Benedicte Kanyiki and Nataly Areiniegas and many volunteers.
"For me, I got involved with the environmental club first and I wanted to be involved in this as well," said Hiba, who joined Waste Busters.
Benedicte is part of the energy audit team. She became involved with the EcoTeam as a way to help the planet.
She explained that in addition to forming the energy and waste groups, the team has also planted trees outside and cleans the school grounds once a month.
"I got involved in all the clubs because it's just a passion for me to help the environment, to make sure we study in a sustainable building and don't create more mess," added Nataly, who is involved with both the energy audit and waste teams.
Another element to the EcoSchools program is to change part of the curriculum to teach about environmental issues. Teacher David Crozier is in charge of the curriculum part of the school's EcoTeam and noted that while lessons are already taught about the environment, renewable energy, climate change and pollution, this initiative gives a more focused perspective.
Students and teachers will find out in June if St. Patrick's High School has received the silver certification.
For more information on Ontario EcoSchools visit www.ontarioecoschools.org.
