1,062 schools located in nine provinces and territories recognized for their environmental achievements
Toronto, ON, June 16, 2022—EcoSchools Canada announced yesterday certification results for the 2021-22 school year. 1,062 schools across Canada have been certified as EcoSchools or recognized as Participants in recognition of their environmental achievements.
Participating schools chose from over 50 environmental actions and recorded their activities in the online EcoSchools Certification Application. After the application deadline in May 2022, EcoSchools Canada staff assessed schools’ applications according to standard criteria. Schools could be certified at the Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum level or recognized as Participants. The most common certification level was Gold, with 361 schools achieving this level of certification.
In the 2021-22 school year, the EcoSchools program reached over 730,000 students at 137 different school boards and districts located in nine provinces and territories. We welcomed 221 new schools to the EcoSchools community, including new school districts in Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan.
EcoSchools actions complement provincial/territorial curricula, align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and connect schools to the global EcoSchools network through the Foundation for Environmental Education. In the 2021-22 school year, schools completed over 14,000 environmental actions, which is 5,000 more than the previous school year. The most popular actions included Earth Day, Good On One Side (GOOS) Paper bins, and Community Clean-ups.
Participating EcoSchools’ enthusiasm for environmental action resulted in:
- Over 560,000 hours of outdoor learning
- Over 381,500 kg of waste being diverted from landfill
- Over 1,200 tons of CO2 emissions sequestered from school ground greening activities
Pictured: Students from North Park Secondary School, PDSB
To learn more about the EcoSchools program, visit the EcoSchools Canada website and the 2021-22 National Impact Report. Interested schools can register for the 2022-23 school year starting in September 2022. The EcoSchools program is open to all elementary and secondary schools across Canada. Registration is free for publicly-funded schools and includes access to bilingual, curriculum-linked program resources. Independent schools can register for a small annual fee.
About EcoSchools Canada
Since 2005, EcoSchools Canada’s award-winning certification framework has provided independent reporting and recognition for schools and outdoor and environmental education centres. Reaching about 1 million students annually, it is the largest bilingual, voluntary environmental certification program for K-12 schools in Canada. Participating schools track their individual and collective impact on EcoSchools Canada’s custom-built, bilingual certification platform. The back-end of the platform collects impact data from schools, enabling them to benchmark their progress year-over-year and compare their success across the national EcoSchools network. For more details visit: www.ecoschools.ca
EcoSchools Canada is the Canadian National Operator of the international EcoSchools program, overseen by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE). As a member of FEE, EcoSchools Canada is part of a community of 72 other national EcoSchools programs around the globe.