R Chris introduced out guests:
Anne Falla has been teaching at ENSS since 2001 and she is the staff advisor to the school's environmental club. Anne also coaches the ENSS cross country team. She participated in the committee to upgrade the ENSS track and field facilities which raised $860,000 from the Community and culminated in the TSN Party on site.
Elena De Luca and Nate Bennett are grade 12 students at ENSS. They completed a science project - called "ENSS Recycles?" - last year. Their project won first place in the Senior Earth and Environmental Sciences division and third place overall at the Peterborough Regional Science Fair in April. By virtue of their third place finish, they earned an all-expenses-paid week in Edmonton where they presented their project at the Canada-Wide Science Fair.
Anne gave us an update / recap of the Environmental Club at ENSS. She is very thankful for the community support and partnerships that ENSS enjoys, including the support from Rotary. Earlier this week she filled her car with donations from Brighton By the Bay community organized by R Chris. The donations go to the Environmental Club's Chique Boutique, a thrift store for students and diverts goods from the landfill. They have 'Give Away Days' on Thursday's.
All the material from the Chique Boutique is weighed and they are approaching a metric Tonne diverted from landfill.
They sell trees as a fundraiser.
They clean the school yard, picking up waste annually,
They have a weekly quiz with prizes for students.
Elena organizes a community walk every Friday to promote the Environment
They held a food drive in the spring with support from the Leo's
They are planning an Earth Day party April 22 next spring.
Students undertake research projects and compete in Science Fairs. One of these projects was presented by Nate and Elena.
'ENSS Recycles ?'
Elena and Nate investigated the success of the ENSS recycling program. They started with a survey of the students, asking several questions about their understanding and success of the ENSS recycling program.
They designed some new 'recycling' bins and organized a class by class recycling program to educate and promote recycling.
Then they tracked what happens to the recycling by putting a couple 'trackers' in the waste. One ended up in a landfill in the Ottawa area, the second in a closer landfill. They looked at the cost and waste of hauling 'recycling' to Ottawa. They followed up with the company contracted by the School Board to remove the waste and recycling with little success. They reached out to CBC Go Public that resulted in a story.
When they took their project to Edmonton last summer, they witnessed the heavy smoke in the air from the wild fires.
Elena and Nate are committed to taking steps to improve our Environment.
Pres Joyce presented a cheque to the ENSS Environmental Club.