Alexandra Community School’s Earth Week was full of coloured clothing, thoughtful questions, and discussions about how each of us can make a difference to minimize our impact on Earth.  Small acts really make a big difference which was highlighted throughout the week as we tracked our garbage from our lunches, planted sunflower seeds, learned about bee pollinators, and gave back to our community by cleaning up our neighbourhood.  Students learned a lot about how impactful things they do have on the Earth and how making small changes to some of them can make a huge difference if we all do them.The week began when Emilee and Mya presented classes with a painted Earth to hang on their door for the week! Every day they added their "trash" to the Earth to see what impact they have as a class. 

Looking at the amount of waste helped students to conclude that we need to look closer at the things we throw out and figure out if they can be recycled, reused, or reduced (i.e., YOP container, pringles containers) instead of thrown out. We also wondered about using reusable plastic or metal containers instead of zip lock bags and buying and cutting up a block of cheese instead of buying cheese strings.  Striving for litter-less lunches is one way of helping the environment while also creating a habit-forming action.

Each day of the week students learned different things about the environment and our planet.  We got to meet a bee keeper and see part of her hive. The queen bee is the one with the mark on her abdomen.

Our kindergarten class created a bulletin board highlighting the different colour days and their learning.

On Friday, all classes pitched in and cleaned up an area of our local community.  Pictured below is Grade 4/5 Ms. Stephens class proudly sharing their load of garbage collected from their cleaned up area.

 source: Alexandra Community School