Beyond Recycling

Earth Day at St. Joseph’s was a day-long celebration. Destination Imagination teams traveled to different stations, learning about the Pacific Gyre, composting and how First Nations people can have a very different view of the environment . They made recycled paper, recycled candles, and a trash-to-treasure plant pot. They participated in a drumming circle, and … Continued

Instead of sheets of paper, we worked with cookie cutters and lots of different colours of paper from the recycling to make shapes that will turn into the front of Mothers’ Day cards. The class was able to make a few shapes per person, playing around with the thickness of the pulp and what colour … Continued

St. Joseph’s grade 4/5’s did an incredible job presenting their findings as to just how much raw materials, energy, transportation and waste goes into the making of a simple pencil. From the extraction of wood, metals, and latex to the realization that there’s not much we can do once the pencil is too short, the … Continued

This was a pleasant surprise – from a student at St. Joe’s.

The sun was out, but it was cold for the students at St. Joe’s, who braved the shade to watch a truck at the transfer station get filled with mixed waste. When we got to the Ootischenia landfill, there came that truck to dump its load – which then gets flattened by Stan’s compactor. While … Continued

Mrs. Graham’s 5/6 class did an outstanding job creating works of art from objects destined for the trash heap (or recycling box, at least). There was a cardboard guitar, a music stand made of old hockey sticks, and a hockey stick picture frame (complete with a photo of a much younger avid hockey player). There … Continued

St. Joe’s students are on week 3 of the EcoChallenge, well over 15 000 ecopoints, and certainly are doing A LOT to grow their ecohandprint.

Week 2 looks about as good as Week 1 – there`s recognition that some of this can be lots of fun ("I like walking to school in the snow"), some can be hard ("What was a challenge was to go meatless for 2 times a week"), and that we are capable of changing ("My mom … Continued