nvironmental
groups at schools are becoming more and more popular. The Harbour View
High School Green team is no different. The two founders, Nancy Butler
and Katie McDevitt, have been advisors to the Green Team for the past
four years. The group began as a small gathering of a handful of
students, but has since grown to be 25 members strong!
Throughout this time the team has done
numerous activities all in the name of the environment. The school has
saved hundreds of trees by recycling paper and participating in the
Fundy Region Solid Waste Commission's "Save a Tree Contest."
This contest encourages schools to recycle their paper products in
order to reduce the amount of paper that ends up in the landfill. For
the last two years Harbour View has taken first place in the high
school category. You would be hard pressed to find a balled up piece
of paper in a trash can at Harbour View!
Recycling at Harbour View High
School
(Photo: Nancy Butler)
The Green Team's main focus is waste
reduction and they have organized numerous activities with this
objective in mind. These activities include things like a recycled
Christmas wrapping paper workshop, setting up a cell phone and ink
cartridge recycling depot in the school, establishing a school wide
composting program and creating a Green Team mascot - Captain Compost!
The art department at Harbour View has even adopted a green theme by
painting beautiful murals throughout the school.
Green Team mural.
(Photo: Nancy Butler)
Several students and staff from Harbour
View High School have been recognized for their environmental efforts
and have received awards. Mindy-Lynn Morris (student) and Alice Worden
(teacher) both received awards from the Fundy Region Solid Waste
Commission last year recognizing their environmental efforts both in
the community and school. Harbour View's famous custodian Art Kincade
received the Mayor's Environment Award recognizing his environmental
leadership at Harbour View High School, and the school's Green Team
was a recent recipient of the Saint John Blooming Spirit Award for
their environmental initiatives.
(Photo: Nancy Butler)
At the end of last year the Green Team
participated in a sustainability challenge that was sponsored by
Aliant and won first prize with their sustainability project. The
project involved making a series of lesson plans and games for grade
three students that taught them the basics of sustainability,
composting, and recycling. The Green Team made up a series of
laminated cards that had pictures of different items - food, paper,
metals, etc. The grade three students were then asked to divide up the
cards into the appropriate recycling categories. The categories
replicated the categories that you would see when recycling at the
blue bins. The students also viewed a short movie put together by the
Green Team featuring our Green Team mascot, "Captain
Compost" and his nemesis "Styro." The students had a
great time playing games and having their picture taken with Captain
Compost.
Captain Compost poses with a grade 3
student.
(Photo: Nancy Butler)
This year the Green Team has already
had a "new to you clothing sale," participated in a
recycling clothing fashion show as part of the celebration of the 10th
anniversary of the Fundy Region Solid Waste Commission, and completed
a neighbourhood cleanup. In two hours, the students managed to collect
25 bags of garbage weighing in at approximately 475 lbs!
The Green Team's current focus is
fundraising to purchase dishes for the cafeteria so they can stop
using paper, plastic, and Styrofoam. All members of the green team are
great models of how easy it is and how much fun it can be to live in a
sustainable way!
