About Ontario EcoSchools

“Ontario EcoSchools is an environmental education and certification program for grades K-12 that helps school communities develop both ecological literacy and environmental practices to become environmentally responsible citizens and reduce the ecological footprint of schools.

It consists of four components:

Ecological Literacy

Waste Minimization

Energy Conservation

School Ground Greening

The Certification Process

Certification recognizes a school for its annual achievement in the 4 key areas above. Schools set goals to increase the types of environmental activities in each category and can certify with bronze, silver or gold EcoSchool status depending on how successfully the school has met the requirements of the program based on a points system.”

Environmental Activities at Herb Campbell Public School

Classroom level:  

• Integration of Environmental Education in many areas of the curriculum
• Increase the number of Outdoor Education Fieldtrips and visits to our own Community Garden
• Create Green jobs for students (Light monitors, Recycling bin monitors, Upcycling bin monitors, Goos paper (good on one side paper) monitors

 School Level: 

• The Herb Campbell Environmental Council
• HC Community Garden (Includes a winter vegetable garden, a butterfly garden, a tree garden, a decorative gourds patch, an outdoor classroom, no-mow zones, and a Reading Tree.
• Bird Observation with multiple feeding stations
• Student-Created Nature Guide and our Kindergarten Wildlife Pattern Books and Get to Know our Wildlife Neighbours
• Altantic Salmon Classroom Hatchery Program
• Stream of Dreams
• Paperless school newsletter by email and on website (subscribe to it!)
• 4 EcoWalls (3 interactive EcoWalls to inform the school community and one to archive where in Caledon students have been involved in Stewardship Programs)
• Think Recycle Tuesday (cellphones, Ink cartridges, toner, tablets)
• Weekly environmental announcements
• Upcycling program to earn funds for the Community Garden
• Recycling of cardboard, paper and containers
• Litterless lunches promotion
• Goos paper bins in every room in the school
• Promote reusable water bottles
• Environmental Education assemblies
• Waste Audits
• Energy Conservation Brigade
• Earth Hour participation
• Earth Day activities
• Turn off all lights, monitors etc. when leaving an empty room
• Photocopy double sided
• Put photo copiers on ‘energy saver’ at the end of the day
• Paperless staff communication to families through MyClass
• Monthly newsletter inserts to communicate environmental education to parents and the community