Fernie's Young Green Grasshoppers

My first recollection of a recycling bin was in first year university in Victoria, circa 1997. You couldn’t walk a block on campus or in town without being confronted with one. Although the learning curve wasn’t steep, it took effort to get going, learning all the steps as you found them. When I travelled to Seattle a couple of years later, I saw how much further they were as my sister and her friends were taking part in recycling and “green” living in a far more aggressive and user friendly way.

Most likely, you too have memories of your learning curve with recycling. And most likely there will always be more that we can do. But I take comfort in knowing that the next generation is steps ahead of us – recycling and “green” living are integral to their day-today life at a very young age.

Here’s a brief look at some of the initiatives our schools have in place to help Fernie’s young “green” grasshoppers on their way.

Isabella Dicken Elementary School

Isabella Dicken makes sure to recycle all paper and cardboard as well as lunchtime juice boxes and drink bottles. Along with this major step, they reduced the number of garbage cans in the school and in each classroom, and actively participate in the Earth Day clean up (“Trash Bash”). There is a "No Idle Zone" for cars outside of the school, students, staff and custodians are encouraged to turn off the lights when rooms are not in use, and walk or bike to school.

IDES participates in Beyond Recycling, the first Education for Sustainable living program offered by Wildsight (http://www.wildsight.ca/education/sustainliving) and have student tours local transfer and recycling plants.

On top of it all, they encourage students and parents to pack "Litterless Lunches" and to bring their own cups, plates and utensils to school events.

The Fernie Academy
In one of the student’s own words:

At The Fernie Academy, many things are green, and I’m not just talking about the fluorescent green walls visible from the street. During the renovations for the new portion of our school, green strategies were used to make the school more energy efficient, and more environmentally friendly. The floors are one hundred and two years old! That saved a lot of trees from being cut down. The windows installed are not only extremely large, allowing natural sunlight, but they also serve as partial insulators. They reflect heat; keeping heat inside the classes during the winter and heat outside during the summer. This reduces the need for the furnaces to be running full time, although the new furnaces that were installed are 92 percent efficient. Each classroom also received skylights, which lets sunlight into the classrooms, and new, more energy efficient light fixtures that adjust the amount of power being used in accordance to the amount of natural light already in that room. In the new bathrooms, low volume flush toilets were installed, and water conserving faucets.

Outside of renovations, the school works hard to not be wasteful. Each class has separate boxes for juice boxes and reusable paper. Throughout the hallways there are various bins for each of the recyclable items we use in class. There is a lunch program that uses fresh home cooked foods. By having this particular lunch program, less pre-packaged food is being used by the majority of the students, reducing the amount of garbage that the school produces. Furthermore, we use plates and cutlery rather then plastic disposable products.

I`m glad to be part of a school where an effort is put forth every single day to help prevent damage from being done to the environment.

Kimberli Papp, Grade Eleven Student

Fernie Secondary School
Janet Kuijt, as part of the Education a l’Exterieure 8/9, incorporates lessons that make students reflect on their water consumption both individually and as a family. Some of these include:

- Personal and family water consumption calculations.
- Implementing sustainability strategies for personal water use such as three minute showers and walking for water, highlighting how many communities do not have potable water sources and have to walk every day to get water
- Touring the Old Growth Poplars in Morrissey educating the students on the importance of protecting water sources.
- Safe drinking water testing, where the students test eight different water sources testing for certain chemicals and generating conclusions on drinking water quality in these areas. This program is offered through www.safedrinkingwarter.org
- An overnight field trip with a water related theme, this year potentially a canoe trip discussing how our decisions change water landscapes.