Earth Day, Every Day at King’s-Edgehill School!

King’s-Edgehill School was Canada’s first Independent School, dating back to 1788, a school that “helps students BE more than even they thought was possible”. The school Environment Club mission is to increase environmental awareness at school and to help staff and students make sustainable choices. Back on April 17th, a few days before Earth Day, they hosted a successful Earth Day event that included an assembly, storytelling, field trips, and hands-on experiments to learn more about our impact on the Earth.

We started the morning’s events with a Junior School Assembly led by Junior School Director Taya Shields who showed inspirational local and global photos of the Earth. She also shared some dramatic photos and videos of the environmental harm that is happening on our home planet. These images captivated the students. Engagement Officer Natalie then presented to the staff and students about Earth Day and its 2018 theme: Oceans Plastics. After these inspirational talks, the Environment Club Leader Ryan Alguire explained how the rest of the day was going to proceed.

The grade nine students ventured out on a field visit to an off-grid house. The remaining students visited two of four stations which included: energy efficiency, seed planting, green bin set up and labels, and recycling bin labels. Each one-hour session was organized so the students were doing something hands-on and their action would have a lasting positive impact on the school and earth. 

The session on energy efficiency was hosted by Natalie. This group had previously received a presentation on energy and energy efficiency in January so they just needed a small refresher before doing the hands-on Energy Meter Activity. They were given many electrical items to test and had to put them in order from highest consumption to lowest consumption, based on their estimation. Students then used energy meters to measure the actual amount of energy that was being used and to compare their estimate to find out how close they had been to the correct order. Next, we compared inefficient and efficient light bulbs. We used some quick mental math to explore the amount of energy and money we waste when we use inefficient lights. During the discussion, we talked about how much of our energy waste is through behaviours such as leaving lights and computers on or leaving our chargers plugged in. Students let their artistic side shine and made reminders for light switches and outlets on stickers to be used in their dorm rooms and other rooms across campus.

Planting seeds was a session that is always a great success! The students at Kings-Edgehill loved getting their hands in the soil and learning first-hand about the promise of new life as they watered the soil to trigger the seed coat to break and begin the plant’s journey. This station is a must with future King’s-Edgehill Earth Day events!

The last two stations focused on the amount of waste the school was producing. Unfortunately, the school was not sorting the majority of their waste. Kirk Symonds, the regional Waste Educator from Divert NS was able to visit the school earlier to teach students and staff how to properly sort their waste. During their Earth Day celebration, students just needed to label the bins and distribute them in classrooms around the school. Since many participants in the Earth Day event are international students, some may have never heard of recycling and sorting their waste. To help with the process, students labelled the containers to cover all the languages of the current students.  

The morning sessions were well-received and once the rain stopped, the students were excited to head outside and doing the annual community clean up! Way to go!

Check out their amazing photos that were shared on their social media pages: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

Another great green year and another very successful Earth Day at King’s-Edgehill School!

~Natalie McMaster
Engagement Officer, Southern NS