Eco School Smarts

Okay, you’re probably already packing a “boomerang” or litterless lunch. You shut off your engine so you don’t idle in the school parking lot during drop off. Or, maybe you’re already sending your son out the front door, eco-friendly school supplies in hand, to join the neighbourhood’s walking school bus.

But is there more you can do to green your child’s school? Because it’s the many small initiatives that have a big environmental impact—for example, by introducing a No-Idling program last year, a Calgary school cut down the number of cars idling nearby by 20 percent in just two months. So read on to find out how easy it is to make their learning environment that much greener.

Get e-busy.

Push for paperless communication by helping to type in email addresses for class lists. (Or let your children practice their keyboarding skills by helping to input emails.) That way more communication can be done electronically. “That’s something that can be time-consuming and it’s an ongoing thing to keep up with people’s emails, but it can really help,” says Catherine Mahler, program coordinator of the Ontario Eco-Schools program, a program encouraging environmental education as well as improving schools’ environmental practices.

Snip and clip.

Clip articles relevant to environmental news to help keep a school bulletin board fresh. “Again, it’s time-consuming for teachers, and this way a board in a busy hallway is maintained and people know that it’s new stuff,” says Mahler.

Push for a school or class-wide project.

The Reusable Bag Project is an initiative in which children collect old, heavy-duty materials such as jeans or work pants and, with the help of parent volunteers or student environmental clubs, turn them into reusable bags. “You could even sell them as a fundraiser,” says Lidija Puteris, youth program manager for the Learning for Sustainable Future program, a school and community program supporting sustainable development.

…Or reinforce an existing project.

“Sometimes it’s difficult for families to maintain a stock of good plastic containers because kids lose them and they’re expensive, and that can be a barrier to programs such as Litterless Lunches,” says Mahler. “So if some families have extra containers, set up a depot in school for ‘got it-need it’ plastic containers.”

Be a green mentor.

Is there another school in your area looking to improve its environmental practices? Connect with parents and teachers there, and mentor them through their initiatives. “It requires a great deal of cooperation from the schools but if there’s a way students, staff and teachers can get together and help swap ideas and troubleshoot, it’s quite helpful,” says Mahler.

Lend a green thumb.

Encourage the school’s staff to start a Food for Thought program which involves students growing food at school in containers. “They start it there and watch the progress, and then before the summer starts, they take it home to either plant it outside into a larger container or a garden,” says Puteris.

Plan environmentally friendly gatherings.

Make Meet the Teacher or Curriculum Nights “Lug-a-Mug” nights, to which attendees bring mugs from home for refreshments. Or, take up a collection for gently used dishes, glasses and mugs to outfit the staff room with reusable dishware.

Whatever you push for, Mahler notes that any effort is about role-modeling sustainable behaviours for your children, and pushing for students to become engaged in environmental action. “We do need supportive adults in our parents and teachers, but it’s all about facilitating student action,” she says.