Environmental Advocacy at Frederick Banting

Environmental Advocacy at Frederick Banting 
by Selina Nguyen Fredrick 

Banting is one of the few schools in Ottawa Carleton District School Board that has achieved Platinum Ecoschools status for our environmental initiatives. We achieved the certification for being an eco friendly school by demonstrating energy conservation, waste minimization, ecological literacy, school ground greening, leadership and stewardship beyond the school.

 In the front of our school we have an organic garden in the past years students have planted garlic, kale, carrots, many herbs, flowers and space tomatoes. Fredrick Banting is also part of The Mission to Mars Project with the Canadian Space Agency. We participate in a double blind study every year and are provided tomato seeds which we germinate under constant conditions observing and submitting our results to the University of Guelph and the Canadian Space Agency. For the last two years one of our sets of seeds we discovered after being given the results from the double blind study on the origins of the seeds had been collected from tomatoes that had been grown on the International Space Station. Once we completed our study we were able to share our germinated plants as well as plant them in our school organic garden for growth and harvest. So that's where we got out space tomatoes.

 Not only do we do greening outside but we also have gardening indoors. We have a growtree or grow tower that provides us with many greens. We also have plants grown from seeds that we've collected. An example of some are our avocado trees started from the pits and watermelon plant. We also do vegetative reproduction with some of our plants like our succulents, onions and pineapples.

 Fredrick Banting has a comprehensive recycling program that takes place every Friday. Frederick Banting last year had the highest waste diversion rate in the Ottawa Carleton District School Board and we want to keep it that way. Students around the school help out with recycling by collecting the blue/black bin and compost from rooms without a teacher like bathrooms, photocopy room, hallways and kitchens. The washrooms have their own compost bins for used paper towels this way students and staff are encouraged to compost. After the collecting is done students make an announcement for all classrooms to bring down their blue/black bins and compost. While the classrooms bring their bins the helpers rate and sort out the bins that are contaminated. We are working on teaching and role modeling such that the recycling and compost that is brought down for a final sort and rating is not cross-contaminated. While the classrooms bring their bins the helpers rate and sort out the bins that are contaminated. We give feedback and rate each classes Blue, Black, Compost. Students also go class to class and area to area to rate the Garbage to make sure there are no compostables and recyclables in the garbage. The classroom or area with the best Compost, Blue and Black bin with no cross contamination are awarded the weekly Green Frog plushie and the classroom or area with the prefect garbage gets the weekly paper mache Green Turtle award.

 Fredrick Banting also receives newspaper donation from a local Community Bible Church so we can make our own compost liners. These liners keep the small bins clean and make collecting compost easy. Banting Students and Staff were filmed for youtube on how we make compost liners from newspapers so that you don't have to buy them from the stores. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C2I7IUufM8&feature=emb_title

 We also have our own clothing donation that students or teachers bring in called “Trader Fred”. Students and teachers can take the clothes on the rack or bring clothes that they don’t want anymore. The clothes that are unclaimed after a few months are brought to an organization for anyone around the community to take. This way the clothes are always recycled around the community and not ended up in landfills. Hopefully this will reduce fast fashion and reduce the pollution of greenhouse gases that comes with the mass production of clothes.

 In terms of environmental stewardship there has been issues on contamination in our bins. The most common issue is finding straws in our recycling bin. Many individuals don’t know that straws aren’t recyclable and need to be thrown out. The straws are usually found in fast food drinks or juice boxes. There are many solutions to this problem like changing the packaging on certain drinks or even switching to biodegradable straws. Currently I have written on this issue and will be posting a petition to the Change.org website. Make sure to read and sign the petition once posted to support reducing plastic waste. In my research I have found good alternatives for the replacement of plastic straws.

 All these practices helps school communities to develop both ecological literacy and environmental practices to become environmentally responsible citizens and reduce the environmental footprint of schools and our planet. There is no Planet B!