I’m writing a series of blog posts to document my learning about green schools; work that I have landed in over the last few years. Please follow along with my journey and share where you are in the environmental sustainability movement.
One of the green initiatives in my school district is a district Green Team, which I described in this post. In a recent meeting, in which all of our schools were represented, our community members discussed Earth Day. This year, Earth Day is on Friday, April 22, 2022. Our Green Team leaders shared a number of ideas that the site reps could take back to their school such as:
- A table at lunch where students could make recycled art, or art that represents one of our green initiatives, or around the theme of Earth Day
- A scavenger hunt for students to go around the school and find each of the green initiatives signs (explaining our key initiatives such as water filling stations, no idling zones, rain collection barrels, solar tubes, etc.)
- A Waste-less lunch day, teaching students how to bring a lunch from home with no waste
- A trash collection (we are finding more masks on the ground now than ever before)
- A Bike and Walk to School day
While our green team leaders consider how they will celebrate Earth Day at their school sites, our Educational Services team also puts together resources for teachers to enhance their lessons throughout the entire week leading up to Earth Day. The Earth Day website, https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2022/ is a great resource. This year’s theme is Invest in Our Planet. You can find lesson ideas, campaigns to support, the history of Earth Day, and so much more on their website. I encourage every educator to consider how you can bring in Earth Day education to your classroom, school, or district this year, whether you have any green initiatives or not. This is a free, easy way to start and our earth deserves it.
Previous post(s) in this green schools series:
Reflections on Leadership and Learning 
This is a brilliant resource!
A good post on Earth Day 2022! 🌍
I readily recall an unsigned editorial a local newspaper (The Surrey Now-Leader) printed just before Earth Day 2017, titled “Earth Day in need of a facelift”. Varied lengths of the same editorial, unfortunately, was also run by some sister newspapers, all owned by the same news-media mogul who also happens to be an aspiring oil refiner.
It opined that “some people would argue that [the day of environmental action] … is an anachronism”, that it should instead be a day of recognizing what we’ve societally accomplished. “And while it [has] served us well, in 2017, do we really need Earth Day anymore?”
Until reading this, I had never heard anyone, let alone a mainstream news outlet, suggest we’re doing so well as to render Earth Day an unnecessary “anachronism”. Considering the sorry state of the planet’s natural environment, I still find it one of the most absurd and irresponsible acts of editorial journalism I’ve witnessed in my 35 years of newspaper consumption.
Thank you for a long reply, Amy. Yes. You are right. Happy Earth Day 2022! 🌍
Actually, my name is Frank [fgsjr2015].
I am so sorry, Frank. Happy Earth Day, again 😊🌍
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