Green Holidays Webinars are a huge hit!

The holidays are upon us, and instead of buying all of those gifts, cards, tags and wrapping papers from stores, students across Nova Scotia are trying to waste less this holiday season! This November, Engagement Officer Pam hosted Green Schools’ Nova Scotia’s very first Webinars with Green Holidays as the topic.

For the first time, multiple classes from across the province joined Pam on an online video conference call. They could all see and hear each other, but no one had to drive anywhere – reducing everyone’s ecological footprint! This is another way we’re supporting more than 330 schools across Nova Scotia, keeping the earth in mind. We had schools from Cape Breton, Yarmouth, the Annapolis Valley, Colchester, and Cumberland joining together for these webinars, and no one had to drive anywhere to “meet up.”

During the Green Holidays webinars, students in Grades Primary through seven learned how the holiday season can create lots of extra waste. We often waste energy, money, food, plastic, and more. The great news is that it doesn’t have to be this way! We can celebrate the holidays with our loved ones, while also caring for our earth! We can bundle up in our warm sweaters, put our LED holiday lights on timers, save the leftovers to make soup and other meals, and more!

The participating classes learned how to upcycle old scrap paper into origami trees, which can be used as gift tags, cards, even making a garland and other fun decor. 

The students learned about Gifts of Time– and that often our loved ones simply want to spend time with us, baking cookies, sledding, skating, etc. Spending time with our family and friends makes lasting memories, and is usually free (or very inexpensive). As the wise Dr. Seuss once said, “Maybe Christmas, he thought…doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps…means a little bit more!”

~ Pam Chandler

Engagement Officer

We will be offering more webinars in January, check out the topics we will be covering: 

Habitats & Ecological Footprints with Scott Ellis

Animals require healthy habitats to live in and humans impact those habitats through the resources we use in our everyday lives. That impact is called our Ecological Footprint, the measurement of our total impact on the Earth. We will trace our feet and draw ways we can make our footprints smaller (Curriculum links Gr. 4 Science). This lesson looks at how the use of energy can actually impact animal habitats. Students get to use what they know about the habitats to have discussions on why human impacts could negatively impact them. 

To sign up for this interactive lesson, follow this link, or contact your Engagement Officer for more information. 

Needs vs Wants with Natalie McMaster

Have you ever really thought about if what you really need is more of a want? We explore what is a ‘need’ and play a game to pick the location that gives the animal all that it needs to survive. We explore what are our human needs vs wants. We end by seeing what happens when we ‘want’ too much! Students are left with the challenge to look at how they use the two words ‘want’ and ‘need’, and tasked with focusing on their needs and maybe wanting a little bit less. (Curriculum links Gr. 1 Science and Social Science, Gr 2 Social Studies)

To sign up for this interactive lesson, follow this link or contact your Engagement Officer for more Information. 

Winter Walk Day with Jenna Swartz & Kelsey Brasil

Winter Walk day falls on Wednesday, February 5th and in this lesson, students learn all about why it is important to take a break and go outdoors. It happens all over North America, and so many schools participate. This special day is beneficial for several reasons, health & also when we are outdoors, we are not using electric energy. Learn all about the fun things students can get up to by participating in this day! 

To sign up for this interactive lesson, follow this link or contact your Engagement Officer for more information. 

Energy with links to Climate with Genaya Fraser

In this fun and interactive lesson we look at the difference between weather and climate. We look at factors that control climate and how our everyday actions are impacting the climate. We talk about how we can make better choices to reduce our energy use and our impact on the earth’s climate. 

To sign up for this interactive lesson, follow this link or contact your Engagement Officer for more information.