St. Louis Receives EcoSchool Gold Certification

St. Louis Receives EcoSchool Gold Certification
Posted on 07/05/2021
The St. Louis Living Arts School Eco team stands with EcoSchool banner.

The St. Louis Living Arts School Eco team stands with the EcoSchool banner.

St. Louis Living Arts School has received the EcoSchool Canada Gold Certification!

The school first became involved in EcoSchools in 2019-2020. They continued in the 2020-2021 school year with a full action plan to carry on their EcoSchool work, which is a perfect fit with their Living Arts Programming. To gain Gold Level certification, the school community came together to learn about Living Arts School Programming practices and their effect on the environment, and then improve their efforts to be more environmentally responsive. One of the most impactful parts of the journey is that the whole school has been involved, even when they had to move to the virtual learning environment. They’ve had participation from parents, School Council, and community partners, so the work and learning is far-reaching.  

In order to become certified, they’ve worked on a wide range of initiatives all designed to bring education and awareness to the school community.  The work included assemblies led by students, which helped nurture leadership skills. Grade 3 students led an assembly about “GOOS” paper – good on one side.  They learned about best practices for reducing paper waste and put an action plan to reduce the amount of paper used in the school. Grade 4 students led “the Great Gulp” or “La Grande Gorgée”, a bilingual campaign on water conservation.  Tree watering and planting was explored by the Grade 1/2 class; and each homeroom led a different project that increased knowledge and improved practices. Grade 5 students explored Energy Conservation and Grade 6 students participated in Young Reporters for the Environment. A school Earth Hour was also held during which all lights and electronics were turned off throughout the school.  School Council supported the work through choosing to sponsor a fundraiser selling reusable snack bags; this supported the Waste-free lunch initiative.  They also purchased compost collection containers for each classroom.  

“An important aspect of the Eco-School work is not just to hold a campaign on a topic, but to measure our improvements over time.  For example, we’ve had support from the KCDSB central staff with our energy audit, and we look forward to seeing if we can reduce consumption.  We’ve also measured our paper consumption as well, and strive for an overall reduction in paper use,” said Principal Maureen Frankcom.

St. Louis’ work on the EcoSchools project has united the students, staff and community in achieving a shared goal.  The staff Eco-Team is very large, and consists of employee members from many staff groups, which shows the commitment of the staff to this certification.  They have used creativity and problem solving to adapt their original plans when schools switched to on-line learning.  

Moving forward, St. Louis Living Arts School plan to maintain their Gold status, and if they are able, improve to the Platinum level.  They will continue to have students take on leadership roles in their work.  Next school year they will work to complete actions from their plan that they were unable to complete as fully as they had wished because of the school closure, including “Walk or Bike to School and Work” Week, and the Waste-free Lunches.
Website by SchoolMessenger Presence. © 2024 SchoolMessenger Corporation. All rights reserved.