April 22 marks Earth Day – an annual opportunity to celebrate our planet and the environment. On this Earth Day, Edmonton Catholic Schools is highlighting some of the ways our students and schools are Going Green and working together to build a more sustainable future. 

St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Elementary/Junior High School 

St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Elementary/Junior High School is growing through gardening! Students are learning to plant, harvest, and even cook different vegetables and fruits as part of this classroom initiative. One of the Grade 3 classes just harvested lettuce from its garden tower and then brought their own salad fixings from home to enjoy a salad lunch. The school’s Foods Class is growing lettuce and tomato plants to harvest and use in their upcoming cooking assignments.  

St. Richard Catholic Elementary School

St. Richard Catholic Elementary School takes its role as stewards of the environment very seriously. St. Richard was the first school in ECSD to install solar panels on the building’s roof and has found unique ways to incorporate them into its everyday curriculum. Students have baked solar chocolate chip cookies. They also analyze the results from a solar panel reading to understand how the 24 panels work in all weather climates. 

The photo of the display below shows a day when there was a blizzard and the panels were covered with snow and not a lot of electricity was being produced. Staff can now give students the output for a random day and ask them to predict what the weather was like on that day based on the energy produced.  

St. Francis Xavier Catholic High School

The FX Environmental Club at St. Francis Xavier Catholic High School has been working on improving waste disposal at its school and finding ways to become better stewards of the Earth. The club has worked on improving waste disposal signage and finding ways to decrease waste at the school level. Students also discovered that clothing contributes to large amounts of waste in our landfills. The students thought, why not create their very own 'Pop-Up' Thrift Store. And so, the 'FX Closet' idea was born! 

Before Easter, students and staff were asked to do 'spring cleaning' and donate any gently used items. The response was tremendous! The FX Environmental Club sorted the clothes and created a well-organized thrift store for students and staff. Clothing was priced under $5, so it was affordable to all and a great way to find that 'gem' of an outfit while encouraging repurposing and reusing of items. The group raised money that will be used later in the spring for future environmental initiatives such as planting seeds to grow vegetables. The leftover clothing will be donated to support Ukrainian families arriving in Edmonton. 

Holy Trinity Catholic High School

Holy Trinity Catholic High School has been celebrating Earth Week! A team of volunteers dressed up in Earth and Recycling Bin costumes and wandered the school spotting students practicing earth-friendly habits such as carrying reusable water bottles and low-waste lunch packaging. Over 200 students have been spotted to date!

Holy Trinity has a Recycling Centre where they collect 8 different categories of recyclable materials. On top of that, each classroom has two recycling bins, one for paper and one for mixed recycling. The bins are emptied twice a week and it is estimated the school has saved 8000 bins of recycling from the landfill. It’s just one of the amazing stats the school is sharing with students as it continues its mission to Go Green! 
 

St. Oscar Romero Catholic High School

St. Oscar Romero Catholic High School's Go Green project is a cross-curricular, school-wide project. Since launching in September, the schools’ construction and fabrication classes have finished assembling the greenhouses and building the 12 garden boxes that are now set up in a sundial around the labyrinth, as you can see in the aerial view. The calculations for the exact placement of the garden boxes were completed by the school’s Math 31 students. 

The school will soon assemble the log stumps around the labyrinth for its outdoor classroom space. Currently, students are growing seedlings for some of their plants and vegetation in their WIN class. Chemistry students have been ensuring that the water and fertilizer mix for the hydroponics system is appropriate for herbs and greens. In addition, the foods classes have been composting and feeding compost worms, which they are using in their soil mix for the seedlings.  

Click here, to read more about Romero's Go Green Project.