Goal

As a community, we used chalk art images and messages on our school grounds on the theme of Earth Day.

Our ever-generous mother earth has been providing us with everything we need from the beginning of time.  We wanted to help our learners know that they can return the kindness! and care!

The annual celebration of Earth Day gave us a chance to express our gratitude to mother nature through our actions and words.  Spreading Earth Day wishes can be our part in learning and sharing out to the community.

Activity

Our teachers dovetailed off of topics that they were teaching and learning about in classes (i.e. climate change, bees, gardening, sustainability, beloining, etc.). They had learners individually, in partners or in small groups design a picture and/or message to draw on the concrete at a place  choosen on our school grounds.

They found a time this week to take their class out and draw their pieces.  Have fun - play music and enjoy being outside!

Staff then documented  with photos to capture the experince.

These images were then shared widely in the Spirit Movie at an assembly, on a bulletin board in the school and on a virtual exhibit on our website.

Including All

At home, transitional learners were invited to participate with their families too.   Learners were sent the instructions and could pick up a small bag of chalk at the office (or use their own).  They were  all invited to come in an evening and do the project with their families.

Assmebly

We also had an assembly to share our care.  There were many actions that came out of our weeklong Earth Day Care week:

1.  We are launched a new recycling program in every classroom at Westwind.  TerraCycle® and Staples Canada have partnered to provide a second life for used writing instruments!  Through collection in this program across Canada, over 2 million writing instruments have been diverted from ending up in landfills.  If all writing instruments recycled through this program were connected, they could travel up the CN tower nearly 700 times!  At Westwind, we are doing our part!

2. Learners learned about "What Really Happens to Plastic" and shared in discussion on prompts:

• Where is plastic found in your life?

• If you could go back in time, would you stop the discovery of plastic? Or do you think this material offers us important benefits that outweigh its negatives?

* One TL learning parent felt compelled to send in a a reflection:  "The kids loved the Earth Day assembly today  my son was so happy to tell me that he learned about bioaccumulation in fish and leachate runoff from landfills!  For Earth Day, we also watched The Year Earth Changed - it was very interesting about how the natural world recovered a bit or had a chance to breathe when the world stood still in 2020 due to the pandemic."

3.  A story about Planet Earth was read:  "Earth!  My First 4.54 Billion Years"