After being certified as a silver-level Ontario EcoSchool last June, Immaculata Catholic High School hopes to gain gold this year by engaging more of the student body in their environmental initiatives, says Eco Club Co-President Camila Moya.
Ontario EcoSchools is an education program, run by school boards and implemented in schools throughout the province to help students reduce their environmental impact.
“We’re going for gold,” says Gillian Mullan-Boudreau, co-vice president of the eco club.
In an effort to get gold certification, Immaculata is offering a new course to students this year called Environmental Industries.
Moya says the course is great because it’s not just the eco club members who are taking it.
The club is also further rejuvenating their school’s green space – a large garden in the cafeteria – by adding more plants and hiring a landscaper later in the year.
The eco club tends to the garden at least once a month, and co-vice president Owen Hovey checks to make sure the garden is watered.
The club has also begun preparations to create an aquarium beside the garden.
The teacher who started the club in 2006 is currently teaching in the Arctic for a year, three teachers agreed to share supervision responsibilities over the club so it could continue.
“The onus is on the students to run the club and implement the initiatives,” says Stephanie Byrne, one of the supervisors filling in for the year. She says the students run the show.
According to Jennifer Ring, co-president of the eco club, the club also plans to engage more of the student body by selling organic t-shirts this year, and using some of that money to purchase acres of rainforest.
Elanor Waslander, assistant program co-ordinator at Ontario EcoSchools, visited Immaculata last year to verify the school’s green initiatives before certifying them.
“The jump from silver to gold is quite substantial, normally you can feel it when you walk into an EcoSchool that is gold,” Waslander says.
According to Waslander, a gold school needs to achieve 75 per cent of the points in all six sections of the program, which takes a lot more organization.
She says schools that have achieved gold status are those where there is a lot more administration involvement, and often, students at the school will create sub-committees, such as one that deals with waste minimization.
“Then we’re really talking about creating a culture of conservation at a school,” Waslander says.
The four executives of the Immaculata Eco Club have already begun self-audits, and have been rallying the student body.
The school began a weekly competition called EnviroGirl. An environmental trivia question is asked every Friday over the annoucements for a prize.
Representatives from the Ontario EcoSchools program will visit the school in May to determine if they qualify for gold.
“I just want future generations to have the things I have today,” Moya says.