Yarmouth Consolidated High School picks up over 2200 lbs of illegally-dumped waste!

Yarmouth Consolidated High School’s green initiatives are in the hands of a very dedicated O2 teacher, Tarah Thompson-Schwan, and her students. They started their year off with an environmental clean-up that netted over 2200 lbs of illegally-dumped waste! They then toured the entire Waste Check facility to get a better idea of how waste is sorted and recycled. Environmental issues are heavily discussed throughout the year with this group.

This winter they had John Sollows from TREPA (Tusket River Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.trepa.com/) in to talk about local environmental issues. To pique interest with the whole school on sustainability, they had all the Grade 10s watch the movies “Revolution” and “Bag It”, and now they are in the middle of creating environmental issue awareness campaigns for elementary and high school students.

“Revolution”, by Rob Stewart, is “a documentary to inform, inspire and motivate positive action for the future of the planet”. There are handy pre-viewing, post-viewing activities teacher resources and classroom activities on the Revolution website. (http://therevolutionmovie.com/)

“Bag It: Is your life too plastic?”, by Suzan Beraza, a documentary about an average guy who decides to stop using plastic bags and what happens next. There are curriculum links and ideas for school projects. (http://www.bagitmovie.com/)

This spring, they have planted their seeds and are currently completing the interior of the greenhouse that they finished building last fall, then the plants will be moved outside to the greenhouse. In May, they will be working with the Yarmouth Stormwater Project by the Clean Foundation (http://clean.ns.ca/programs/water/yarmouth-community-stormwater-initiative/) to build a rain garden on the school property, as well as plant about 500 trees in the local area. They are also planning an environmental clean-up with Waste Check (http://www.wastecheck.ca/index2.html) and the Nature Conservancy of Canada. (http://www.natureconservancy.ca/en/)

Awesome work Yarmouth Consolidated High!