Staff
On Thursday, October 12, Grades 2 and 3 from St. Vincent Euphrasia Elementary School teamed up with Grade 5-8 classes from Georgian Bay Community School for a Community Clean-Up.
A similar event led by the Municipality of Meaford was held at Meaford Community School a few years ago. Torie Lisk, a co-op student with the Municipality of Meaford, rekindled this idea. She met with teachers from both schools over the summer to discuss how her environmental services placement could reach out to the schools.
Older and younger classes were paired and given a section of the map. Neighbourhoods to the east and west of St. Vincent are now litter-free thanks to the efforts of the students. They were provided with bright green bags and gloves for the event. Students were surprised with what they found including shoes. Cigarette butts were the most common complaint, with fast food containers as a close second. Some were surprised at how little there was to collect, even after the recent wind storm. Teachers encouraged students to predict, estimate, and measure the weight of their finds. The total mass was not able to be calculated as the reclining chair was not able to be measured by the spring scales brought from school.
With Waste-Free Lunch week approaching, students are always considering how their lifestyle affects the environment and their community. How nice that the students were able to positively affect the community in just a couple of hours.
