Earth Week 2021

Greenwood’s Environmental Committee hosted a successful Earth Week 2021 during the week of April 26-30. 

To launch Greenwood’s Earth Week 2021, on April 22 (Earth Day), the Environmental Committee created an Earth Day lesson that showcased a new perspective on environmentalism to students called Intersectional Environmentalism. It’s a way of analyzing environmentalism issues through a more inclusive lens that advocates for the protection of all people and the planet.

The following Monday, our guest speaker, Mira Vuletic, kicked off our special Earth Week 2021. Mira introduced us to another important perspective on environmentalism, the idea that we can all take slow, small steps to make a big collective impact. She explained that she was first motivated to take small steps when she realized how much waste was produced by her growing family. That’s when she learned about the zero-waste movement. However, her biggest takeaway from that was the following idea: “We don't need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly”. Fast forward a few years, and that message inspired her to open The RE Place, an eco-friendly and package-free general store that also houses a zero-waste coffee shop called Poured Coffee. The aim of the store is to help Torontonians make sustainable swaps and shop package-free, both of which are important small steps each of us can take.

The Environmental Committee’s events throughout the following week continued to emphasize the idea of choosing to make little changes, starting with Meatless Monday, which encouraged staff, students, and their families to eat a meatless meal since that is a great way to cut down on our carbon footprints. On Trashless Tuesday, an adviser lesson was run that had students analyzing what single-use items are most often found on city streets and sustainable solutions for reducing them. After school on Tuesday, our Arts Committee hosted an Arts Everywhere event that had Greenwood members recycling old paper into plantable cards containing seeds!

Water Wednesday started off by having students and staff learn about the average Canadians water usage as well as the environmental impacts of plastic water bottles through one of our daily trivia forms. A small step we can all take to combat this is bringing a reusable water bottle everywhere we go… Staff, students and even their families were happy to show off their reusable bottles and earn house points at the same time! 

On Thursday, students continued to focus on water by learning more about the ongoing issues Indigenous communities in Canada face when it comes to accessing clean water. As led by teachers, this lesson ended with small steps students can take such as: supporting foundations that fight for Indigenous communities or by furthering educating themselves on the issues. 

We ended off the week with Slow Fashion Friday where students and staff learned about the negative environmental impacts of fast fashion and were encouraged to show off their slow fashion pieces such as secondhand items or sustainably made ones!

The Environmental Committee hopes to continue the momentum gained during Earth Week 2021 during the remainder of the school year to encourage staff, students and their families to take more small steps towards living more sustainably!