Environmental Conference a Success!

April 26, 2010

Eastern Ontario Region Environmental Education Workshop was well attended by and enthusiastic team from HPEDSB: Stacey Belanger, Principal of Harry J. Clarke P.S., Beth Power, teacher at Susanna Moodie Elementary, Holly Seaboyer, HPEDSB’s Environmental and Energy technologist, Andrew Wachner, teacher from Centennial S.S., Angeline Conlon, teacher from Maynooth P.S. Heather Aide, teacher from Trenton High and Veronica Ford, the HPEDSB’s EarthCARE coordinator.

Presentations and a sharing of ideas and actions were dominant throughout the 2 day conference held in Ottawa on March 22nd and 23rd.

Michael Faught, the Regional Environmental Education Lead for the Southeastern boards kicked of the conference by discussing the importance of environmental education as discussed in the Ministry of Education’s new release Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow.

Presentations included an overview of the Re-Fresh program from the Polaris Institute project – an initiative geared towards fostering youth awareness and activism on bottled water corporations and their role in public policy making, as well as a consciousness of how global and local water issues are connected. Another titled Integrating Environmental Education by teacher, Katie Williamson involved the sharing of a Grade 7/8 inquiry based unit of study clustering geography, language – reading, writing, & oral, and religion. The Big Idea/enduring understanding- ‘As citizens of our World, we have a social responsibility to care for our Earth. In an attempt to reduce the effects of Climate change and Global Warming, we can make a positive difference by promoting stewardship and becoming stewards of the Earth’ guided both the teaching & learning.

Time was spent as each Board shared best practices, current state and next steps for bringing policy and action into play. Stacey Belanger and Beth Power presented on behalf of HPEDSB and enthusiastically described our 5 year progress with EarthCARE.

We left the workshop inspired and ready to work on our next steps. We will continue to increase awareness and promote environmental stewardship and social responsibility with both our students and staff.