Vision

Reduce the amount of waste produced by the School Lunch program in our school, and and be an example to other schools that an eco-friendly school lunch program is a viable alternative.

Action

We had an idea sharing circle. The 9 students who attended the Climate Change Youth Forum on Oct. 29, shared what they learned at the Forum, and the others shared what they learned from their research in school. We discussed Climate change and ideas for Action projects that we could do as a class. The class decided that they wanted to tackle the School Lunch program policies as they saw a lot of wastage in the school lunch program. Many of the class are school lunch volunteers so see first hand what’s happening. They decided to write a petition and send it to the School Lunch Association, The NL School district, and the Provincial government. They also said they wanted to present their research projects to the younger classes to teach them about Climate change and get them thinking about what they can to to help. We made Google Slide presentations and posters to teach the younger grades about climate change, actions we were taking, aand persuade them to get on board with us.
Specific actions:
We bought reusable metal forks fo replace the single use plastic ones provided by School Lunch Association.
We made reusable and washable aprons to replace the single use plastic ones provided by School Lunch.
We met with the School Lunch Association Executive Director and got the School Lunch association to agree to let student lunch volunteers wear their own hats instead of the single use disposable hair nets provided by the School Lunch Association.
We met with City Councillor Jill Bruce and gave her a letter our class wrote, asking for the city to provide a bin for the collection of School Lunch single serve milk cartons, and for our school, and every school, to be included in the bi-weekly pickup of curb-side recycling (which would pick up the hundreds of milk cartons thrown in the trash daily).
We made presentations and posters and shared them around our school making other students aware of climate change and how to mitigate it by reducing waste and other actions.
We, grade sixes, monitored the younger students at the beginning of the new routine, to get them used to putting the metal forks in the new fork bins we provided, instead of in the garbage (what they’ve been used to doing with the plastic forks for years).

Reflection & Celebration

We are proud of our efforts to learn about Climate Change, taking leadership to teach younger students in our school about it, and very proud of our positive actions to make our school lunch program much more eco-friendly.
To celebrate, we ordered and received a tray of Spruce Trees which we are planting around the perimeter of our school garden. A lasting legacy from our class to our school. this class is moving on to the Jr High next year, so will get to see their trees grow for the next three years. We are also celebrating with a picnic which will include veggies from our Little Green Thumbs Class Garden.

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