Green School Grants - Nova Scotia

"The Eskasoni community is a First Nations community located in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia," explains Colin Clarke, who teaches science at Chief Allison M. Bernard Memorial High School in Eskasoni. "There were once strong traditions in this community with regards to preserving and protecting local wildlife, and Nova Scotia plants were widely used in traditional medicines, food, drinks, and other remedies. Much of this tradition, respect, and knowledge of nature has been lost through industrialization and Americanization of Native culture," says Clarke.

Those losses threaten to continue, according to Clarke, as the community faces daily assaults on its indigenous culture from the enticements of global media. That makes the school's project, a community garden and outdoor classroom, all the more necessary. With grant funds, the school will buy planter boxes, soil, and local plants. "The site will preserve plant species that are native to Nova Scotia and help protect them from extinction or competition from non-native plants," says Clarke. Since there is money for benches as well, the site "will also give the school an area where the science staff can promote scientific inquiry into traditional ideas."

Currently, says Clarke, the schoolyard is somewhat unkempt and often littered with trash. Another goal of the project is to beautify the school environment. "A new garden site may cause students to realize how community issues, like littering, directly effect our own school. Ultimately, we hope to renew interest and increase student knowledge, understanding and respect for the local environment."

The Grade 11 class of Shambhala School in Halifax is dreaming of a greenhouse, says student Kelsey Borden. "We're between 16 and 17 years old," and we're excited about building a bridge with the community." The school is a short walk from a soup kitchen and a food bank, "both of which would benefit from fresh food," says Borden. That's why her class has come up with plans to build a greenhouse.

Borden and her classmates have already designed a 12- by 13-foot structure that will hold seven planters up to eight feet long. The grant funds will pay for the lumber, safety acrylic, and other construction materials the students need to build the structure. "In Halifax," says Borden, "the weather makes it impossible to start vegetables early outdoors." Once the school greenhouse is constructed, the students will sow leeks, radishes, carrots, squash, beans, and tomatoes, as well as greens that will grow throughout the winter.

The school's younger students will learn how to care for the plants, while older students will use it as hands-on study of various science and health subjects. At harvest time, "most of our produce will be donated to the Ward Five Food Bank and to Hope Cottage, our local soup kitchen, which feeds people who live on the streets around downtown Halifax," says Borden.

Not only will the students of Shambhala School be sharing their harvest with their neighbours in need, they'll also be promoting greener living. "The greenhouse will be used as an urban food-growing lab," says Borden, "to model the growing of food to the surrounding community."

West Northfield Elementary School's plans for their Green Garden are proof that big rewards can be reaped from even a modest plot.

"We plan to keep the garden fairly simple," says John Atherton, who teaches at the Nova Scotia school. Students on his Grade 5 and 6 Green Team will build a four-by-five-metre wooden box, with lumber bought by grant funds. The funds will also cover soil and compost, because, says Atherton, the soil at the school is poor. That realistic attitude governs the project. "With no one here to garden over the summer," he says, "we plan to only a grow a few select vegetables that will be ready to harvest come September/October: sunflowers, pumpkins and two types of tomatoes."

But from that simple garden, Atherton believes many benefits will grow. First, "healthier food in the cafeteria," he says, since it will be the beneficiary of the pesticide-free vegetables. As well, once a week, a different class will get a container of cherry tomatoes for a free, healthy recess snack.

That points up another benefit of the garden: it's a resource for all. "Teachers can take classes out to learn how food is grown and a plant's life cycle." Students on the Green Team will teach, too, by taking younger grades on tours.

Role modeling will be an important yield from the garden, according to Atherton. "Hopefully, our project will get more students going home, asking their parents if they can start their own garden!"

Ruth Adams, a Grade 4 teacher at Digby Elementary in Digby, Nova Scotia, is hoping that by next October, every student at DES will have helped grow a bumper crop of pumpkins.

A productive harvest would be great for school spirit and pride, says Adams, although that's not the only goal of the DES Pumpkin Patch project. "We also hope to see a new understanding of the importance of doing our part in helping the environment."

The DES Pumpkin Patch project will kick off in early spring, when the school's youngest members will, thanks to discovery kits bought with grant funds, learn how to plant pumpkin seeds in peat pots. Then, students in Grades 3 and 4 will take over, caring for the seedlings and planting them in the five-by-six metre pumpkin patch, which Adams and her committee hope will attract many species of insects, birds and wildlife.

Members of Grades 5 and 6 will take on the responsibility for weeding and pruning the plants, and for watering them with water from the rain barrel the grant will fund. "Hopefully, the whole school will take part in harvesting the pumpkins," says Adams.

"By educating the 375 students in our school about the importance of plant life and growing local food, we are helping to shape a generation of citizens who will better understand their role in being green advocates."

They've been shown at film festivals in Toronto and Chicago and have won several awards, including the best under-18 film at this year's Earth Day Everyday Heroes Film Competition. "We've been fortunate to have our work screened nationally and internationally," says Andrew Stickings, a teacher at Ecole Grosvenor Wentworth Park School in Halifax and the adult behind the school's Reel Student Productions. "It allows our environmental message to get out there."

As Stickings explains, Reel Student Productions started with exactly that goal. "Our class decided to focus our love of filmmaking on educating others about recycling and energy conservation," he says.

"In 2008, grade five students decided to do a short film about blue bags and what you should actually put in them." The students wrote a screenplay about a couple of discarded recyclables trying to find their way home to a blue bag, then shot and edited it. "Into the Blue was a fun learning experience," says Stickings, "that really hit home."

Stickings and his fifth graders have just finished their fourth film, Coal Dust in the Wind, about wind energy. The grant will help Reel Student Productions keep up the momentum by funding field trips for more filming. It'll also buy small but important supplies, like DVDs. "Students can't wait to get their DVDs," Stickings says, "and run home to share what they've created with friends and family."