October Newsletter Contents
1) Nature Guide created by Students for Students
2) Take Action with Lights Off and Monitors Off Stickers!
3) Hartman's Bollywood Production Dramatizes Value of Trees
4) Meatless Mondays make a big Environmental Impact
5) Le coin FrancÉcophone: À l’appui des enseignants – 20/20 Leçons en classe
6) Green Halloween Tips
7) Upcoming Grant Opportunities

to see a clip of the guide click on the image above

to see a monatge of Herb Campbell's SGG click on image above

Take Action with Lights Off and Monitors Off Stickers!
Friendly reminders to save energy can have a large impact on your school’s daily energy conservation practices.

Place Lights Off and Monitors Off stickers on monitors and light switches to communicate active reminders. To order these fun and attractive stickers please contact your EcoSchools board representative.

The cost is 8 cents per sticker and are bundled in 100s. Please order any multiple of 100. Orders will only be accepted through your board representative. If you don’t know who your EcoSchools board rep is, please contact the Ontario EcoSchools office.

Another cost effective way to engage students in communicating energy saving reminders is to post student-created reminders around the school.

St. Andrew PS from the Ottawa Catholic DSB hosted a Green Art Challenge which asked each classroom to design and create a 'ceiling tile reminder' encouraging classes to conserve energy (i.e., turning off the lights and computer monitors). These are placed throughout the school as a colourful way to engage the community in energy conservation.

Hartman's Bollywood Production Dramatizes Value of Trees
Hartman Public School in York Region produced a Bollywood style play loosely based on "The People Who Hugged the Trees" a children's book by Deborah Lee Rose, adapted from a 300-year-old classic folktale that took place in Rajasthan, India. The story is about Amrita Devi and her fellow villagers who defied the Maharajah's woodcutters to protect the trees that the village depended on for survival. 

The play focused on both ecology and non-violent approaches to conflict. The powerful message was delivered through humour, thought provoking power points and lyrical dances ...and there were a lot of cool high energy, colourful bollywood dances too!

Although the setting was in India, the plot has many connections with the forestry issues of Northern Ontario and British Columbia. The villagers in the play began the Tree Hugging Movement or the Chipko Movement as it is called in India.

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Meatless Monday cafeteria spread at Branksome Hall

download Meatless Mondays schools factsheet

Meatless Mondays make a big Environmental Impact
A number of EcoSchools have been participating in Meatless Mondays or other similar initiatives as a powerful way to improve personal and planetary health.

The UN reported in 2010 that agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. It also reported that lesser consumption of animal products is necessary to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change.

At Branksome Hall in Toronto, Meatless Mondays is a school-wide initiative in the junior, middle and senior schools. The cafeteria has a vegetarian main course on the menu every day of the week and Mondays are completely meatless.

To raise awareness about Meatless Mondays, students ran a recipe contest and created a cookbook with the resulting staff recipes. Winners won a dinner for four as well as having their recipes published. The first contest went so well that students also ran a second contest with students.

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