Vision

“We try our best, We never give up, We all belong, We are Husky strong.” This is the mantra of our school, Harrison Public School, made up of just over 200 students from Kindergarten to Grade 5. We try to incorporate this vision into all that we do, and our Eco-team is no exception. This year, our Eco-team is made up of 30 extremely dedicated and passionate grade 4 and 5 students who want to make a real difference in the treatment of our Earth. This year, our Eco-team’s vision for a special Earth Day celebration was to find simple activities to educate the other students about a few of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (Good Health and Well Being, Clean Water and Sanitation, Climate Action, Life Below Water, and Life on Land).

Action

For our school-wide Earth Day, our Eco-team organized our grade 1-5 students into multi-grade teams to engage in six different activities. We carefully crafted each idea to ensure there were opportunities for students to try their best, not give up, and reinforce our sense of community as people sharing a home, the Earth. Our activities consisted of: (1) mulching and rejuvenating the pollinator plants in our large green space and outdoor classroom, (2) creating seed balls designed to increase the amount of pollinator plants at school and in the greater community, (3) created games about the impacts of climate change on the biodiversity in our oceans and on land, (4) created and posted pledges based on simple actions we could do everyday, (5) participated in a sound bath where students practiced grounding and connecting with their environment, and (6) decorated our blacktop with pictures of animals, the Earth, and inspirational messages/quotes. For our Kindergarten classes, our Grade 4 and 5 students led the same activities on a separate day and also focused on planting in the Kindergarten pen.

Reflection & Celebration

Now that over a month has passed since our school-wide celebration of Earth Day, we have seen some small, incredibly important, changes among our students. Changes such as students talking about the pollinator seed balls that they have planted and started to watch grow, reminding each other to use the signs in the classroom to sort waste, as well as excitement about the greenery we are starting to see in our shared green spaces and outdoor classroom. They are starting to see themselves as important change makers in creating the world they want to live in and a new tradition has begun at Harrison Public School.