Before the holidays we said goodbye (just for now!) to Messy Jesse who left us to embark on an adventure in a far away country. In the meantime, I will be taking over. Hi! My name is Jen Mac and I have been working at the Kinark Outdoor Centre for two years during the summers, off and on during the weekends last year and then joined the coordinating team full-time this fall to coordinate the Climate Change Program. I have a background in teaching and working with populations of different abilities. Two of my passions are outdoor pursuits and environmental education. I have witnessed first hand the transformative power of outdoor experiential education programs can have on people of all ages and abilities. Kinark combines all of these things very well and I have been proud to work here.
Over the next several weeks I will post blogs surrounding trends in the field, what is going on at the centre and the perspectives of a young teacher. Today, I will begin speaking of the Climate Change Program. To date, 44 classes have gone through our school program with a couple more scheduled to come up this month. At the end of our program students make a commitment to live lighter on the environment. To do this we have them sign a contract where they choose one of ten strategies which will reduce CO2 emissions. Each of these strategies has a number correlated with it determining how many kilograms of carbon will be saved if this activity is carried out. We send a copy of these contracts and postcards back to school with the teachers and then ask them to send them to us a few weeks after they attended the program to tell us if they completed the task and to give us details on their experience. This allows us to calculate the actual kilograms of carbon emissions were saved. We have received a lot of postcards back and these are some of my favourite comments:
“I promise to plant 15 trees. I will be planting trees until Christmas and I will have shorter showers for the rest of my life” - Teagan from Lady MacKenzie P.S.
“ I promise to recycle and compost. I have made this part of my weekly chores and I normally have a lot to go through” - Kristyn from Macaulay P.S.
“ I promise to plant a tree in my local environment. It was a very interesting experience. I even foun different types of insects while I was digging the hole. It has grown a little and I almost have a tiny apply tree” - Matt from Macaulay P.S.
“ I promise to not idle my car. I have talked my mom into going instead Tim Horton’s instead of going in the drive thru” - Ryan from Macaulay P.S.
“ I promise to plant a tree native to my community. I dug a hole in a pot and put in a pine seed and filled it in. Then I watered it. In the spring I will have a pine tree” - Evan from Rolling Hills P.S.
“I promise to choose organic foods. It tastes really goof and I don’t have to worry about chemicals” - Laura AKA the girl in blue from Muskoka Beechgrove P.S.
“ I promise to have showers shorter than ten minutes. I once tried to have a staggered shower by turning the tap on to wash soap off and then turning to off to put soap in my hair then turning it on again to wash it out. It was fun!” - Makaila from Muskoka Beechgrove P.S.
“ I promise to plant a tree. Well, I used my dad’s old boot and planted an acorn in it”
- Author unknown, postcard was not signed.
To date, students have saved 1 064 505 kg. Amazing! Great work everyone!
I keep getting distracted by the giant snowflakes falling outside my window. Happy New Year to you all! I hope you enjoyed the festive season. It was busy around Kinark this week as Greenwood College School had their grade 10’s here enjoying our winter programming, getting their year started on the right foot (or ski!).
