Photos From Earth Hour Day

Clairlea celebrated Earth Hour the whole day. Here are some photos documenting this beautiful day that kept power on the back burner, so to speak.

Mr. Knierim was all smiles before turning off the staff room photocopiers for the day. Teachers and staff managed to make it through an instructional day without worksheets while children rejoiced and trees raised their branches in praise.
These babies are usually treated like beloved friends. Today, they sat idle, like spurned lovers.
Not the set of a horror film, but the hallway on the second floor of Clairlea. We kept the hallway lights off all day. Only emergency lights were kept on. The hallways were a lot brighter near the windows as you'll see in the photos below.
Room 204 did a few green activities today. One such activity involved rummaging through blue boxes to find random texts that would be used to create "found" poems.
From trash to treasure, students got busy and created some highly entertaining and occasionally mysterious poems.
Plundered Forest Valley trip form becomes a curious poem. While the poem below has something to do with the word "March."

Thanks to students, staff, and families for making this day a green success.

Earth Hour & Last Child in the Woods

This Friday, Clairlea will be participating in Earth Hour. During the afternoon, staff and students will be asked to "power off." This means lights, computers and all other electrically powered contraptions will be turned off as a symbolic gesture. We can survive without electricity for a little while. I'm also hoping that this Friday we can turn off the photocopiers in the staff room and the upstairs resource room all day. We can do it!

When I was a child, I'd spend hours outside playing at the local parks, climbing trees and riding my bike around our neighbourhood. We were lucky enough to have a cottage where I learned how to fish and garden with my dad. I also learned not to fear nature. As a teenager, we lived on a street opposite the Scarborough Bluffs. I used to wander over to the grounds of the Guild Inn and write poetry and take pictures of flowers and trees. Nature was my greatest influence and it certainly brought out a creative side - much to my own surprise.

Several teachers at Clairlea have been inspired by Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods. Louv makes a very strong case that today's children are not spending nearly enough time outdoors as they should be. Here is a blurb from the back of the book: "This new edition updates the growing body of evidence linking the lack of nature in children's lives and the rise in obesity, attention disorders, and depression." Louve talks about how children today are being raised as "container kids," shuttled back and forth in cars from one indoor space to another, spending too much time parked in front of the TV or computer and not enough free range time exploring the world outside.

I am reading this book right now and as a parent and teacher, it's already forcing me to make changes in the way I spend time with our young son as well as my class at Clairlea. We will definitely be spending more time learning in outdoor classroom over the next few months. To read more about this book visit http://richardlouv.com/last-child-woods I may be including some of Louv's discussion points on upcoming posts.

Stay fresh and green,

Erin Hawkins

Our Love Affair With the Photocopier

As part of our mission to reduce paper waste, Mrs. Kumagawa has assigned each teacher a code number for the standard photocopiers. We do not require a sign on for the more energy-efficient Riso in the staffroom. Mrs. Kumagawa recently posted the January totals for the non-Riso copiers. I'm sharing the totals for the top ten teachers who used the least amount of paper. Many teachers were in the 1000-2000 sheet range, which is not bad. Some went up higher still. We all need to use photocopied materials in our classroom, but we can all try to cut down by planning ahead. Let's see how February will be.

Soon, the Green Team will be announcing a super throw-down: a trial run at a Photocopy-Free Friday. This would mean photocopiers would be shut down for the day to reduce energy consumption and reduce paper use. Teachers would not be allowed to use pre-photocopied materials either, unless it's an overhead transparency. Can we do it? I already hear fingernails scratching blackboards.

January Photocopier Totals

Chow 65
Knierim 255
Triggiani 365
Fahim 385
Demeter 421
Park 536
Vincent 801
Kryzanowski 829
Hawkins 866
Cano 932

Here's a reminder from the late, great Marvin Gaye.

As Heard Monday Morning

The Stuff Diet

Vintage glass from the thrift store - good.

Crazy over-packaged stuff you don't really need - bad.

In today's Toronto Star, Catherine Porter wrote about "The Stuff Diet" which basically involves not buying anything other than essential items (such as food and health-related items) for three months. I'm going to try it out and see if I can do it. Apparently, you can still go to thrift stores since you are helping to keep objects from the landfill. This means I can thrift for vintage household treasures without breaking this three month promise. Can I do it?

Stay tuned.

E. Hawkins

Here's a link to Catherine's column: http://www.thestar.com/living/shopping/article/749469--porter-why-i-ve-sworn-off-shopping-for-three-months

Busted on the Job

Megan R. from the Green Team wrote the comments on this post. Great job.

This Green Team member is telling the teachers that they didn't turn off their lights!

Another Green Team member writing a "not good" letter for teachers!

YOU REMBERED!

OOPS!

These door hangers go on teachers' door handles to tell whether teachers did turn off their lights or if they did not. The Green Team is hoping that if we continue to put these on the doors, the teachers will start turning off the lights when they are not needed. Example if your blinds are open you can turn you lights off to save enegry! Or if the teachers are in the staff room they should turn off the lights to save lots of energry for the school!

I hope that the teachers do try to save energy for the school!

By Megan

Saving Paper at Staff Meetings

Just think of all the paper we'll be saving!

Clairlea is becoming more eco-minded by the minute. During today's staff meeting, Ms. Persaud initiated "reduced paper" meetings. In the past, staff members were given a hard copy of the agenda. From this month on, the agenda will be posted on one piece of chart paper, the back of which will be used for next month's agenda. This will save approximately 180 sheets of paper from now until June, plus we save on additional energy and toner used for the photocopier. Every little bit helps.

Good going!