Today was the kick off of the 2009 version of ECO Schools in the Greater Essex County District School Board.
The event brings environmentally conscious students and teachers together to plan environmental issues surrounding their school community.
Last year’s focus was on refreshing the environment at the school. But, it wasn’t just about buying a few trees and planting them and seeing what would happen. It was about planning for sustainability and making intelligent decisions about what to get and where to put it.
During the process, student plotted pathways, areas that don’t drain on the school grounds, sun patterns, and more to determine the life of the school and its grounds. Each school was provided with an aerial view of the property in a SMART Notebook file and their job was to map out the property, identifying all areas, in order to make intelligent decisions about greening.
It worked out well and schools will get a chance to revisit this year.
Above and beyond that, we’re moving into a serious stage about recycling. More information is constantly available about the cost to the environment by some of our human habits.
This year, schools will work with the latest revision of the home grown ECO Calculator. Activities that takes the students deep inside the calculator will be a key component of the day.
I visited the setup this morning to make sure that the technology component is good and ready to go. It appeared to work well and I’m looking forward to hearing how the day went. Tomorrow, I’ll return and take some pictures which I’ll be sure to share.
To recap the events from last year, I live blogged here. A discussion of the planning happened here. And, pictures of the event were posted here.
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