If you are remotely interested in the environment and you know, saving it, you will also be interested in the Ontario EcoSchool certification program! Essentially, it is a program that celebrates the Eco-Successes of Ontarian schools through its different programs. The highest level of certification is the Platinum Certificate! The Leamington District Secondary School of East Essex, Windsor has achieved this Platinum award for the 2016-2017 school year! It is their second year in a row as well!
How They Achieved Platinum
The whole school is to thank for the collective effort of making it to the top. However, this couldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for Carlos Pena Vallecillo, a student whom in 2013 along with his friends, revived the school’s Eco-spirit. The school had been an active EcoSchool in previous years but it was starting to fall out of the program and Carlos helped bring them back. How he did that is through the EcoTeam and through initiatives around the school such as labelling light switches and computers, reminding people to switch them off and promoting less use of plastic! The team’s efforts were so successful that within a year, they managed to save up enough to buy stainless steel water bottles for everyone in the school!
More About The Team:
The school’s EcoTeam has gone on to do much more that providing reusable bottles such as volunteering at local parks to help out the youth programs. In 2015, the EcoTeam went a little more global by campaigning to encourage Canada to set high targets at the COP21 Climate Change Conference in Paris. Though Twitter campaigns, posters, rallies, and several student-made videos, they were able to make an impact on Catherine McKenna, the Federal Minister of the Environment & Climate Change! This was highly important as she showed one of their videos at a meeting at the conference and tweeted about it. Definitely a rewarding result for their efforts!
How To Be Certified:
If your schools wants to get to Leamington’s level, it must adhere to the following requirements:
- Must be a Certified EcoSchool for at least five years;
- Must be Certified at the Gold level for at least three of those five years
- Certified Gold in the year prior to the Platinum application
- The EcoTeam must submit a Platinum Yearly Planner by the deadlines indicated. The Platinum Yearly Planner is a three page calendar that outlines the different projects the school will partake in to ensure it achieves its “greening” goals.
- The school must meet the minimum requirements for Gold level certification (75% of points in each 6 sections listed: Teamwork / Leadership; Energy Conservation; Waste Minimization; School Ground Greening; Curriculum; and Environmental Stewardship.
- Participating schools must also receive a site visit from the EcoSchool program directors.
It is truly incredible how young people are leading the future with all of these new programs! We couldn’t be happier for Leamington DSS and we hope more schools get certified as well!
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Let us know a little more about you! Is your school EcoSchool certified? What kind of Eco-friendly programs do you have at your school? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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