EMSB 2022 Earth Day Roundup

EMSB students and staff were active on Earth Day  in  April.

Bancroft students  clean their bricks.

At Bancroft Elementary School in the Plateau, led by SCA Elizabeth Pellicone, students made moss graffiti at during their lunch hour and wrote earth friendly messages. It will continue to grow in the weeks ahead!  

Cycle 1 students at Elizabeth Ballantyne in Montreal West, Carlyle in TMR and Roslyn in Westmount, discussed how we can be kind to the planet and commitments that we can make to better the environment.  They also read The Curious Garden by Peter Brown and worked on an activity sheet that accompanied the book.    

Karahkwinetha Sage Goodleaf-Labelle

Karahkwinetha Sage Goodleaf-Labelle visited her alma mater Westmount High School (Class of 2016) on  April 27 to discuss climate change through the perspective of an indigenous person having attended the global climate negotiations in Scotland and her work with https://climatefalsesolutions.org/.  Karahkwinetha Sage Goodleaf-Labelle is Bear Clan, Kanienʼkehá꞉ka from Kahnawake. She is a dedicated land defender and advocate for the climate, as well as for the insights offered by traditional Kanienʼkehá꞉ka ways of being and living in accord with the climate and all of Turtle Island. She is not only a student in McGill's Neuroscience and Psychology programs, but she is also a volunteer with Kahnawake Collective Impact that promotes youth engagement programming and works with John Abbott Indigenous students through Youth Fusion. Her work for social and environmental justice brought her, along with an Indigenous youth coalition, to the COP26 Glasgow Climate Pact talks, and her insights from this experience are as impactful as they are urgent. Sage asks students to take a look at Hoodwinked in the Hothouse, available in your language of choice: 

At LINKS High School in Ahuntsic, students undertook activities all week with an environmental focus.

Parkdale in St. Laurent students took part in Earth Day activities with SCA Ibrahim Abou Arab. See pictures. 

At John F. Kennedy High School in St. Michel, SCA Rocco Speranza is organizing a project for students involving recycling skateboards. 

Dunrae Gardens in TMR Grade 3 students have been working on a program about water for the past month. It looks at water from the perspective of science, health, religion, the environment, human rights, and environmental justice, ie. piping and land and water pollution affecting Indigenous communities. For the last class of this unit, SCA Puynung Choy has invited an Elder from the Kahnawake Survival School to come and talk with the students. 

Grade 4 students at Dunrae Gardens will be receiving a visit from Montreal-based artist, Avy Loftus, through the Artists Inspire Grant. Avy is a visual artist specializing in Batik Art, whose work explores the areas of health and wellbeing, environmental awareness, and identity and belonging. 

At Mountainview High School in Côte Saint-Luc, SCA Ms.  Choy has invited visual artist Mary Hayes to the school. Mary specializes in murals, with a focus on fusing art and nature and connecting with the natural world. In the past, she has had done projects with students focused on nature, on the theme of empathy with nature, and she is hoping that students at Mountainview will develop their own project idea aligned with that theme. 

The Mackay Centre School’s satellite class at Westmount High School will took a visit to Mount Royal with Ms. Choy for some “forest bathing.” This was a culminating activity for a program with a broad environmental focus; examining  healthy and toxic environments ranging from the personal, to interpersonal relationships, to climate concerns and ecosystems. Forest bathing   allows students to experience the healing effects of nature.  Ms. Choy notes that it will be a spiritual pilgrimage/retreat, not just a walk up the mountain - or wheely adventure more accurately. It will be a somatic meditative experience with nature.” In addition to their immersion in nature, students will have the opportunity to take part in a range of activities using the natural resources around them, with a focus on healing and emotional regulation. 

At Philip Layton, Ms. Choy  invited artist Louise Campbell to make sensory art out of recycled materials with the students who have disabilities.


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