Vision

Students in our UNESCO group are creating green spaces indoors and outdoors at St. Malachy’s Memorial High School as a transformative action for students to change their understanding about the relationship between humans, plants and climate change.
Planting indoors and outdoors is part of our process of decolonizing our learning by prioritizing students being connected to climate action by experiencing for themselves the joy of planting and caring for plants. We included Sage as part of the plants selected to be used as a continuation of our Truth and Reconciliation learning about the sacred medicines in the Wolastoq culture. We had Indigenous elders as guest speakers in October teaching us about Sweetgrass and we will use the sage we are planning as a learning tool about the four medicines.
Willow McGrath is a grade 11 student who is leading the UNESCO group and she believes that our students need to love nature in order to be willing to act to protect it. To love nature students must have experiences with nature and in nature. As she said at the ECCC Forum for Environmental Education Leadership in Ottawa where she was selected to speak on environmental education in Canada, “at my school we only have one meter of grass outside that we cannot plant in currently.” Willow says getting plants inside our school is a good first step as we work toward making our outdoors possible to plant in.
As St. Malachy’s is located in an area of Saint John NB that has a 45% child poverty rates, much greater than the rest of New Brunswick or Canada, many students have never been outside of the urban environment surrounding our school. Willow and her friends Georgia and Larissa who are leading the UNESCO group see having indoor plants as a way to bring nature to these students who are suffering from environmental injustice because of the impact of industry pollution. Giving students opportunities to interact with plants is a form of environmental justice. Willow uses the plants as a way to improve indoor air quality and teach about the ways plants affect air quality at our school and in our local community. By bringing nature to the students inside by having plants as an indoor learning tool, we also inspire others to action and build community in this work.

Action

Our action project had two components of learning about sustainability and climate action having plants indoors and attempting to plant an outdoor garden bed with edible plants. The outdoor garden is important because it will allow us to learn about native species, but it is particularly difficult because of potential soil contamination and because of the high poverty in our community there has been a history of outdoor plants being stolen.
First the UNESCO group created indoor green spaces in the guidance center and fitness center. This created a positive promotional buzz about plants and their importance to mental and physical health and sustainability among teachers and students. Suddenly the students were connecting with new teachers who they had never met to discuss planting and their love of protecting the environment. Taking care of the green spaces became an indoor community project which built relationships as people were discussing who was taking care of them, different methods to provide adequate drainage, soil, sunlight and fertilizer. An unexpected positive was that students became the experts teaching teachers new knowledge and skills as we worked together.
The first photos reveal the lack of green space at our school indoors with only a fake plant in the room. Then the group photos show how the UNESCO club worked together with students in AP Nature, the student representative council, classes, and the culture club to clean our outdoor school area. This brought a sense of community to students interested in nature and sparked many discussions about how to volunteer with community organizations to improve the area we live in.
Two students volunteered to go to the UNESCO Conference in Olds, Alberta where they were inspired by the indoor window gardens and outdoor green spaces of Olds College. They brought their passion and ideas back with them to tackle the challenge of planting an outdoor garden with edible plants native to our area. During the clean up we faced challenges of unsafe pet waste and needles that were found around our school. Although this slowed our efforts we were able to get it cleaned which is a safety positive for our school and community members.
Students created multimedia presentations in AP Nature about the importance of safe indoor and outdoor green spaces persuading student audiences about the importance and benefits of not ruining the new green spaces.
Next we began getting our outdoor bed ready for a garden. But in the process realized that we needed to test the soil if we were going to put edible plants in. Our area recently was exposed to smoke in an industrial accident so we need to ensure that the soil is not contaminated before we have edible materials bloom. This was an expected challenge that arose but we learned a lot about soil safety standards in the process. This gave us a larger understanding about the importance of environmental protections and regulations in regards to climate and sustainability endeavors.
Next, AP Nature and UNESCO student volunteers tilled the soil and began planting. This was a learning opportunity for those that had never planted before and newcomer international students who had planted in their home countries but were excited to learn about sage, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries which are so crucial to New Brunswick.
Unfortunately less than a week after the plants went in, we did have a theft of a blackeyed susan plant. In response, we placed weed mats and mulch to try to deter further theft. We also are painting rocks to encourage public community members to be good citizens if visiting our school by asking them to pick up after their pet waste, not take our plants that are learning tools, and having informational sheets about the purpose of the project and the type of native species that are present.
Next steps will be to have information sheets for students in different languages about the significance of the plants so all students can benefit from the learning.