EarthCARE Activities at Frederick Banting Alternate Site
May 20, 2006
By Portia, a student at Frederick Banting Alternate Site
and Janet Perry, Teacher, Frederick Banting Alternate Site.
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Janet Perry, a teacher at Frederick Banting Alternate Site, and her EarthCARE class. |
Students at Frederick Banting have been contributing to the EarthCARE program for the past two years. In doing so, this small community of
students has made a small, yet significant, contribution to the Earth and its inhabitants. They have done this by implementing programs within the school and by organizing several charitable events.
Yet before Frederick Banting was ever a part of EarthCARE, students at the school were following some of the program's objectives by implementing a recycling program. Students in Janet's science class have faithfully collected recyclable items from the school's designated
cans for the past 5 years, with many items being saved for creative art and science projects. This year Lorraine Frett's class has also begun to contribute to the recycling program. The school continues to recycle paper, glass, batteries and cans.
This year we continued the LOCO (Lights Off, Computers Off) campaign to encourage
students to turn both lights and computers off when not in use. There was a
class competition for LOCO posters encouraging classes to post LOCO signs on
computers and lights switches. We also had a "Computers Off" sticker competition.
Students from each class made stickers for all the classroom computers. The
students creating the most artistic stickers won EarthCARE prizes. Earlier
this year the EarthCARE Team held a surprise energy audit determining which
class had saved the most energy and had the best recycling practices. Its
intention was to make students and staff aware of and reinforce energy saving
behaviors well before the official spring audit. Both Zandra Taylor's and Janet
Perry's classes tied for first place. There were prizes for the winning class
rooms.
This year there has been more focus on including EarthCARE activities in the school science projects. Many students have done presentations
and posters related to caring for the earth. The Banting EarthCARE Bulletin board is a focus point for many of the projects.
EarthCARE is also used in the art program as materials destined for the garbage are collected and art materials that could be discarded are re-used.
This year we are planning to use the gain sharing money received from the board as EarthCARE scholarships for graduating students attending
post-secondary school. We are working on defining the criteria for receiving a scholarship.
Students continued this year with the second annual Banting Bargain Barn. The Bargain Barn is a creative way to recycle items they no longer used while raising money for various charitable organizations involved with earth caring in sustainable development. Students and staff bring
in used items to sell. Left-over items are donated to the Salvation Army. This year in addition to supporting CHF's Partners in Rural Development, which supports sustainable development projects in third world countries, and the Red Cross for Pakistan earth quake relief, the
Bargain Barn has also raised money for the Canada-Africa Community Health Alliance. The AIDS epidemic in Africa is impacting on the collapse of education and farming in parts of Africa. CACHA works to offer basic health care and provide HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment and
support, facilitates capacity building in communities and works to improve the living conditions in isolated African villages. Greg John, a representative of the Canada-Africa Community Health Alliance spoke at our school and gave a slide presentation about CACHA and his recent
experiences in Tanzania working with AIDS orphans. This was an eye opener to our school and we gladly raised money for the efforts of CACHA. Students were very excited to raise money for CHF again this year. Students earned enough money to purchase two donkeys for women in Ethiopia.
This gift will help the women to bring pottery to the market to sell and enable them to buy food and clothing for their families and send their children to school.
Future plans for this year are already in the works. Activities planned for this year include;
- An "Earth Day birthday" in April with sustainable vegetarian snacks and cake
for sale; proceeds from this cake will go to CHF;
- Classroom EarthCARE quiz with prizes;
- A bottle and penny drive with EarthCARE prizes for those who bring in the most bottles; money going to CHF, the Foodbank, and Rideauwood;
- A bake and organic coffee sale along with art show with the money once again going to CHF, the Foodbank, and Rideauwood;
- Planting evergreen seedlings;
- Recycling used computer printer cartridges and cell phones;
- Another Banting Bargain Barn; and
- A garbage pickup day in April with "Cleaning the Capital."
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