Think Globally Act Locally | The Power Of R

This week I visited Highland Secondary Social Studies 11 classes to speak about the globalization of garbage. It was particularly exciting because Highland has been implementing school wide programs for recycling cardboard, collecting old batteries, and composting. The classes were diverse and interesting. Making the connection to local solutions for global problems is what this presentation is all about. This is what the teacher had to say about the day:

"My grade 11 classes had an extremely positive experience learning more about our relationship with 'stuff'. Zac Whyte presented the information in a professional way, with particular attention to the level of concentration and understanding of his audience. The visual aids really added to the presentation, and the local content increased the engagement of the students."

  – Danika Village SS11 Highland Secondary School

There’s really no other way to describe it. Highland Secondary’s Eco Team is on FIRE! Coached by master teacher Jill Peacock and myself with The Power Of R, Highland Eco-Team is setting new standards for rethinking, reducing, reusing and recycling in schools on Central Vancouver Island.

Every Monday at lunch hour a group of 12 students meet to plan their next project. Naturally, big projects require several after school meetings also. These dedicated young men and women are so hardcore that they only eat vegetarian pizza, recycle everything, and shut off all of the lights except one reading light for meetings, “just to save a bit of power.” Why not?

There are over 1000 people at Highland Secondary. Over the past two years Highland’s Eco-Team has hosted two major Earth Day Celebrations and started to extract invasive plant species around the school. They have planted native plant species and brought awareness of environmental issues to the school and community. That’s impressive but since September 2009 they‘ve really started to heat up.

Pizza boxes have been a big problem at Highland along with food packages and paper bags. Paper products alone were filling multiple dumpsters a week. The Eco Team decided to start a recycling program for paper products and cardboard at the school. Inevitably everyone has adopted the idea. Several dumpsters a week are being diverted from the landfill due to these efforts. Students and Eco Team members handle the emptying of cardboard bins each lunch hour to make the program work.

Composting was the next item on the agenda. There are over 200lbs of compost per day that are sent to the landfill from Highland. Old apples, fruit peels, and carrot sticks get tossed into the garbage to live out their eternity compressed in an airtight sludge. The Eco Team decided to change all of that by adding compost buckets to classrooms around the school. Power Of R and Comox Strathcona Waste Management then donated some composters and some composting education to the Eco Team.

So then the hard part began. The Eco Team deliberated on how to launch this new concept to the school. “How do we go about it? What approach will work best? Will people even do this?” There were many questions but after several after school meetings and lunch hours and pizzas and discussions, an assembly at the school was called. I was honored to be the guest speaker for the event. I talked about the longevity of trash in the landfill. Taking simple steps to sort our rubbish is the difference that the world needs because almost everything can be reused or recycled. The presentations throughout the assembly were great. Dramatic poems, effective addresses, passionate solutions introduced a new way of life for Highland that would only be new for one day.

Today Highland’s Eco-Team is expanding its membership. Composting is a hit. A battery collection bin has been placed at the front entry way for household batteries. Highland’s Eco Team has been attending Comox Town Council meetings to make Comox carbon neutral by 2012. To compliment their effort, Comox has just announced a Blue Box recycling program and pick-up for every school in Comox. Not only is this is a major accomplishment, it is precedent setting for a school in the Comox Valley. The Eco Team is now recycling ink cartridges in the office, computer labs and library to reduce plastic trash. Vending machine products are soon going to be under threat for their packaging material choices. Energy use in the school is also going to be addressed in a serious and now creditable manner. Highland’s youth are taking control of their planet. Their school is simply part of it. I’m proud to be involved in such an incredible group of youth in this time of history. On top of all that, other schools are taking notice. Carihi High will soon be launching an extensive compost program of their own. They’ll also be collecting batteries and recycling their trash. Politics… are just around the corner.

For more information and to include your school in the next evolution of environmental action contact me at powerofr@gmail.com

It’s always a great pleasure to meet like minded people who are passionate about what they do. Great things come from these types of people and there is one of them in each of us waiting to get out and play. These last couple of weeks I have had the great pleasure of accompanying Keith and Renee representing Free The Children from MeToWe to participate in a series of performances and leadership workshops in schools around Central Vancouver Island. The experience united like minded youth around the pressing issues of our world. Some of those issues, like the environment, obviously played a major role in our discussions so I gladly joined in.

The environment is connected to every global issue: poverty, violence, economy, human rights, animal rights and disease to name a few. These connections were brought to light by the students themselves in each school workshop. By the end of each day, groups of active students were beginning to understand deeper, act more decisively, and speak with more passion. The real power of understanding and education is in the decision to act effectively. The students who attended the MeToWe camps with The Power Of R made decisions that day to change their environment, starting with their schools, their communities and ultimately their planet.

I joined the tour with Keith and Renee to visit Highland Secondary, Southgate, and Mark R. Isfeld. In every school there were different outcomes but I watched several kids find their voice for the first time. A grade 8 girl spoke out about the environment, then animal rights and then homelessness and then found out there were others like her in the room. I spoke with her after the session and she had been recruited to the Interact club by some grade 12s and the Eco-Team by some grade 11’s. Sweet Tofurky, that’s awesome! There were several similar stories like that.  A grade 11 youth from Germany on exchange exclaimed how appalled he was when he arrived in Canada to see people watering their lawns. “You would be called an eco-terrorist crazy person if you did that in Germany,” he said.  “People have gardens but they certainly don’t water their grass. That’s just a waste of water.” I couldn’t help but pump my fist and bight my bottom lip with in a silent over exuberance.

Since these workshops took place environment clubs have been popping up at each of the schools we visited. I received a great email from Carihi High, an additional school that Keith and Renee visited. The email stated that they wanted to start a more extensive composting program at their school because Highland had one. “Perfect, let’s start a battery collection, recycling and education series for the school while we’re at it.” This is how action happens and the only words I can think of are “this is juicy!” Needless to say the ball is rolling fast thanks to these workshops.

Keith and Renee flew back to their home town of Winnipeg for a short break in their 80 school MeToWe Tour. They will continue to play guitar around the world and use music to create dynamic connections with their audience. They’re funny and talented. It’s cool to see people doing what they love to do because after talking to them it is hard to imagine them doing anything else. There is a lesson in that for all of us. Saving the planet sounds cliché but it’s what I love to do. The planet needs saving so let’s work together, PowerOfR, MeToWe, you, me, and one little planet. For more information in getting your school involved with The Power Of R email powerofr@gmail.com

When I was growing up my family and I got our fresh water from a well. We lived on a rural property (outside of city limits) so that meant we needed to conserve our water and not waste any of it. We didn’t have access to city water. The well was only sixteen feet deep so that meant it was full in the winter but often ran dry in the summer. We needed to be really careful about how much water we used for almost nine months of the year. Our daily showers had to be efficient, we never let the tap run, and watering the plants needed to be as direct as possible. There was no room for slip and slides or massive water fights.

When you live on a limited water supply it's always a priority to make sure there is enough water for your whole family to drink. In addition to that you need water to flush your toilet. Finally, you need some water to water your garden and plants with. If you run out of water in the summer, like we often did, the plants suffer the most. We would have enough for drinking but not enough to water a large garden. My dad dug a second well that we used just for garden water. That was helpful but expensive and not everyone on my street could afford to do that.

So here are a couple of great tips for saving grey water. This is water that you can use on garden plants all year round. The first and most effective thing you can do is use a rain collecting barrel on your house. This barrel connects to your gutters. When it rains all of the water flows into your gutters and then into your barrel. You shouldn’t drink this water but the plants sure can. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you can collect 100 Liters of water. The second tip is one of my favorites and I’ve mentioned it before in a past blog. When you take a shower bring an old ice cream bucket with you. During the shower the bucket will fill up with all the residual water that misses or bounces off of your body. That’s cool. You can collect 4 Liters of water with no effort. Use it on your plants outside. “Thanks for the drink, dude,” they’ll say.

These tips don’t take much effort and they conserve a tremendous amount of water. They will ensure that our city services, aquifers and water tables are always full of good drinking water. Fresh clean water for drinking is so precious. Plenty of rain water falls from the sky in the winter but most of it never gets into the ground. It runs into the ocean, evaporates or gets used by the forest plants before it can be collected for us to drink. Canada has most of the world’s fresh water but every day we have less because of pesticide use and pollution, urbanization and industry, and waste. The world is looking at us for leadership in water conservation because as the planet gets warmer, there is less clean fresh water for drinking.

Rethink how you use your water and do a Water Audit in your household (an inspection of how you use your water). This will help you figure out new ways to conserve water and protect it. For more information on Water Wise gardening click here.

My first hour long presentation of the season was at Mark R. Isfeld today. Lee McGeorge invited me to introduce the concept of Globalism to her Social Studies 11 class. It's a difficult topic to narrow down but in the end it's about our interconnectedness with everything on the planet. The presentation focused on the global issue of dealing with our solid waste locally and as a planet. We discussed landfills, global warming and case studies of solid waste issues around the world. The Power of R was in full effect when explaining simple methods to reduce, reuse and recycle our waste.

This class is submitting their Top 5 Steps to lowering their ecological footprints to powerofr@gmail.com. You can too! Just submit a photo of yourself, your age, school and of course, your Top 5. If you are a teacher in the Comox-Strathcona area you can book custom presentations now by emailing me.

"Zac Whyte used great graphics, interaction and movie clips to create a memorable and inspiring presentation on globalization for my class.  He discussed various environmental problems associated with our “throw away” society and challenged the students to make a difference.  His enthusiasm and animation really made the topic accessible and engaging for the students.  One student said, “He was entertaining and didn’t just tell us boring facts.”

Lee McGeorge - Mark R. Isfeld Social Studies 11 Teacher

The Comox Strathcona Waste Management service (CSWM) would like to acknowledge the success of last weekend’s Thrifty Foods Pumpkin Smash in the Comox Valley and Campbell River.   

In the one day event, just over 3650 kg (four tons) of pumpkins were smashed in the goal of diverting this organic waste from the landfill. The Pumpkin Smash is an opportunity to promote composting as a means of waste reduction, to educate people about how to compost and to work with like-minded partners such as Thrifty Foods.  The dismantled jack-o-lanterns were transported to the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) compost facility where the organic matter will be used in the production of SkyRocket, a nutrient-rich soil amendment for lawns and gardens.

Timed to coincide with a festive time of year, the Thrifty Foods Pumpkin Smash attracts a larger crowd each time it is held.  One of the attractions is that it is a free event where children and their families can participate in pumpkin smashing games. The children love being given permission to smash their jack-o-lanterns! 

The Pumpkin Smash represents the last event of the season for the compost education centres. The centres are now closed and will reopen to the public for regularly scheduled hours in April 2010. 

The Comox Strathcona Waste Management (CSWM) service is a function of the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) and is responsible for two regional waste management centres that serve the Comox Valley and Campbell River, as well as a range of transfer stations and smaller waste-handling and recycling facilities for the electoral areas of the CVRD and the Strathcona Regional District. The CSWM service manages over 100,000 tonnes of waste and recycled material and oversees a number of diversion and education programs.

Blog Submission by:        
Koreen Gurak
Manager of communications
Comox Valley Regional District
Tel: 250-334-6066

We have a Facebook fansite and we want you to join. Meet up with like minded youth in your school, city or make new friends on Vancouver Island. You know how it works so I won't get into detail. On this site we will be highlighting Feature Top 5 ways to reduce your ecological footprint. Submit your Top 5 today to powerofr@gmail.com. Join us on Facebook by clicking here or on the logo.

If you want to be part of an interesting network than join The Power Of R on Ning. You can set up your profile, customize the look of your site, post photos and ideas, and meet like minded people. This network is really interesting because you can start or join in on discussions, or simply read them over. You can contribute ideas or rally some people to initiate a  project. Check it out at http://powerofr.ning.com or simply click on the logo.

 

Today I met up with a cool crew at Highland Secondary in Comox, BC to strategise their upcoming assembly. The environmental themed assembly is set to launch their new composting and recycling programs at the school. Yes, you heard that correctly - composting... at school... wow! The school is really receptive so this Friday we will meet again to create posters and figure out clear messaging.

The Highland Eco-Team is an incredible group of motivated youth from grades 9-12. Their passionate sponsor teacher Jill Peacock is so excited, and she should be. Comox Strathcona Waste Management donated composters and education to the Eco-Team to get them underway. The team members are collecting leaves to mix in with the green compostables throughout the school year. Highland is definitely setting a solid example to other schools and businesses. They have plans to plant a garden in the spring. I will keep you posted on all of this in the coming year.