Bible Hill Consolidated Celebrates Their First Earth Day!

Since April 22nd happened on a Sunday this year, staff and students at Bible Hill Consolidated School celebrated on Thursday, April 19th. Groups of students visited five different eco-friendly stations, each with a different activity. These five stations included: sorting garbage and recyclables in a recycling relay race, listening to Earth Day stories, working on ecosystem and habitat puzzles, and creating pine-cone bird feeders. What a great day of action to celebrate our Earth!

The pine-cone bird feeders are fun, and easy to make using natural materials that will break down once the birds have eaten all of the seeds. The students used pine cones that were provided by a community member who has a surplus of cones that fall in their yard each year. To make the bird feeders, students covered the pine cones in peanut butter (WOW Butter, butter, shortening, etc. can be used instead), tied on a piece of natural jute rope for hanging, and then rolled the pine cones in bird seed. The students were excited to hang their feeders at school and at home, and were keen to watch the blue jays, robins and other birds eating their lunch.

Students were captivated by the Earth Day stations, enthusiastically learning through many hands-on activities how everyone can help protect the Earth. The school building, which opened in September 2017, is full of green spaces and has lots of natural lighting. The school boasts a beautiful natural playground outside and even has a large reading area with seats shaped like flowers. The amazing staff and students at Bible Hill Consolidated use every opportunity to learn about the environment and how to help waste less. This spring, when they learned that penguin populations are in trouble, students made beautiful posters encouraging others to do their part to help the penguins in Antarctica and to help reduce the global impacts of climate change. You can see these posters and the students’ promises for the Earth in the photos.

Green Schools NS was invited to visit students, including the pre-primary class at BHCS. The pre-primary children enjoy finding ways to reuse “garbage” to make new toys, like making spin tops out of old CDs and bottle caps! No one is too young or too old to discover ways to help the Earth.

If you’re looking for some fun Earth Day storybooks for your classroom, check out:

How to Help the Earth by the Lorax by Tish Rabe
I Can Save the Earth!: One Little Monster Learns to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle by Alison Inches
10 Things I Can Do to Help My World by Melanie Walsh
Give Bees A Chance by Bethany Barton
The Earth Day Book by Todd Parr
The Lorax by Dr Seuss
The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge by Joanna Cole

Learning green habits and skills at a young age can lead to a lifetime of green choices, creating a more sustainable future for all! As Helen Keller said,

“The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”

So let’s all work together to make green choices, for a brighter, more sustainable Earth.

~Pamela Chandler
Engagement Officer, Northern NS

**Photo of Pine Cone Bird Feeders from CCRE April report**