As part of our Climate Leadership Contest, we invited schools to share how they took climate action this school year for the chance to be entered into a prize draw sponsored by Cascades. As the school year wraps up, we are excited to share two more winning schools’ stories!
Last fall, Sir John A. MacDonald Public School students got active to reduce pollution by organizing Walk to School Wednesdays. While going green inside school walls is an important part of the Ontario EcoSchools program, tackling the environmental impacts of getting to and from school is just as important, as the Sir John A. MacDonald PS students recognized. The responses below are based on a condensed interview with their EcoTeam.
What was the action you chose and how does it relate to climate change?
Our initiative was to encourage our school community to walk to school every Wednesday during November to increase awareness of climate change. We encouraged our families to walk, cycle, or park and walk a block to participate in the school-wide effort. We closed our “kiss and ride” to encourage people who normally drive to park and walk the rest of the way. Our hope was to choose a simple action that contributes to reducing pollution.
How did the action impact your school community and EcoTeam habits?
We believe it made many people more aware of the link between vehicular pollution and climate change. Our action also promoted planning, organization and healthy life habits – namely exercise and getting outside. We hope that this initiative showed families how we can make a change by simply walking to school.
What about shifting habits over the long term?
There are many things we can’t control but this is one thing we can. We hope that families will now consider walking to school more often, if not every day.
Does your school have any other climate actions planned for this year?
Our EcoTeam monitors and checks classroom energy use using Walkabout Worksheets. We track classroom energy use throughout the year and classes are awarded points for keeping their lights out when they are not in the room or don’t need them. We also run a game called “Don’t Hog the Lights”. If your class gets caught with lights on you may find a stuffed hog stuck to your door. You have to catch someone else hogging the lights to get rid of the hog. This is a fun way to make students and teachers aware of their classroom energy use. We also participate in Sweater Day each year which we plan to do again this year. We encourage students to wear Sweaters to school and we turn down the temperature by 2 degrees.
Ontario EcoSchools Tips and further reading:
- Want to get active next fall? Plan a walk/roll/ride to school campaign using our Active Transportation Campaign Kit.
- Get key facts and figures about transportation and climate change in this excerpt of our Climate Leadership Toolkit – and get your EcoTeam together to discuss what you can do to contribute to positive change!
- From challenging another school to neighbourhood route mapping, here are ten top walking activities from Active and Safe Routes to School.
- For younger students, use Travel Logs to establish some gentle competition for who walked the most! Celebrate winners during a special assembly.
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