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EcoSites at a Junior High School – Alice Jamieson/Stanley Jones – An Emerging Green EcoSite

Stanley Jones School located on 6th St NE, is home to two CBE programs. Alice Jamieson Girls Academy is a Grade 4 – 9 school for girls; Stanley Jones School is a K – 9 school with a specialized program for deaf and hard of hearing students. Both campuses participated during the 2008-09 school year in the EcoSites initiative. Staff and students participated as a Emerging Green EcoSite.

The Three Pillars of EcoSites are:
• EcoLiteracy,
• EcoRelationships, and
• EcoPlanning and Action.

EcoLiteracy aims to develop understandings; EcoRelationships aims to help students make connections; and EcoPlanning and Action aims to change behaviours.

EcoSites involves a process that includes 5 steps:

1. Creating an EcoSite Committee at the school that includes students, teachers, administration staff, and facility staff.
2. Conducting an audit of Environmental Learning Initiatives currently undertaken by the school. The audit includes exploring how environmental learning is embedded in the school curriculum; what opportunities currently exist to immerse students in the natural world; what environmental action projects focused on reducing ecological footprint are currently underway in the school.
3. Creating an EcoSite Action plan that outlines what schools will do to meet the three pillars of becoming an EcoSite. Schools then submit their EcoSite Action Plan to the CBE EcoTeam.
4. Implementing the EcoSites Action plan
5. Monitoring and Evaluation EcoProgress

Participating schools usually take a whole school year to work on becoming an EcoSite. EcoSites receive a rebate on actual utility savings incurred by their school as a result of their environmental action projects. These funds can be used by schools to further enhance environmental learning opportunities in subsequent school years.

As an Emerging Green EcoSites Stanley Jones and Alice Jamieson engaged in a variety of environmental learning initiatives. To address EcoLiteracy outcomes, teachers planned curriculum connections to environmental learning as part of a November staff meeting – thinking about where environmental learning best fit for their class and students.

To help students develop an EcoRelationship with the natural world, teachers organized seasonal excursions to their school’s naturalization area. Further, they invited an outdoor learning consultant from the Calgary Zoo to provide a training session to their teachers at a November system PD day. Reminders were shared with teachers seasonally about looking for opportunities to take their learning outdoors.

To become an Emerging Green EcoSite, schools are challenged to take on two different Eco-Planning and Action projects in their school. At Stanley Jones-Alice Jamieson, students took on a wide variety of projects. The Grade 8 environmental and outdoor education classes undertook a ‘be the change you want to see in the world’ project. Projects included garbage free lunches, taking shorter showers, limiting TV watching, unplugging household appliances and turning off lights both at home and at school. In addition to these outstanding initiatives, students undertook a school wide paper recycling program to reduce overall waste at the school by 50%.

Students at Stanley Jones and Alice Jamieson Schools demonstrated that as an Emerging Green EcoSite they can make a huge contribution to reducing their ecological footprint as a community and as individuals. Well done Stanley Jones and Alice Jamieson Schools!

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Web Administrator: L. Diemert
Last Modified: September 24, 2011