IF YOU have children in the school system, you know it.
If you are a school teacher, you also know it.
And if you are neither of the above, maybe you know it, maybe you don’t – but the fact remains that the Grand Erie District School Board has jumped on the ‘green’ bandwagon in a big way.
By GREG McMILLAN / TheGreenHub.ca
Crystal Thorne, an editorial intern at the TheGreenHub.ca, recently spoke with Katie Hashimoto, the Supervisor of Energy and Environmental Conservation for GEDSB, to kick off upcoming coverage of eco-initiatives in place at area schools.
Hashimoto harkened back to when the Ontario Ministry of Education introduced its environmental education curriculum in 2008. And she said it’s grown from there by leaps and bounds.
There are a myriad of examples, Hashimoto says, all aimed at helping students make connections to their “everyday lives, the environment, and how it affects them.”
Green Matters would like to draw attention to specific samples, and is hoping the GEDSB chips in to encourage publicity for the individual efforts being made – whether it be board-wide policies, or individual classroom projects.
AROUND THE GREEN HUB
Reader Warren Bechard, commenting on recent Green Matters’ columns on the development underway at the former Harding Carpets’ site in Brantford’s Holmedale neighbourhood, posed a question we will try to find answers to in the next little while. “I am not an expert on brownfields by any means,” he wrote in an e-mail, “but I do know that we have many acres of small brownfield sites in Brantford, not including the Mohawk-Greenwich site, that could be sold off and developed so they could generate taxes. I think this is a win-win for the taxpayer – the sale price of the land and the taxes generated by the new builds. What’s wrong about that?” He went on to claim that there are several infill builders who would like to purchase many of the properties for development. “The brownfield people have no right to stall the sale of these properties any longer,” he added. ….
…. The CTV News series focusing on the solar industry in Ontario kicked off this week, with an appearance by Ken Burns of Brant County’s Solar Team business. The investigative program, put together by reporter Joel Bowey, is wide-ranging, and informative, both for consumers and for businesses directly affected by trends and developments. Those businesses, by the way, are mostly in a state of limbo, right now, as they await a provincial review of feed-in-tariff (FIT) guidelines and application procedures. Videos of each installment can be found by using Google, with these keywords: solar slump CTV Joel Bowey ….
…. Mark Skeffington, Communications/Project Coordinator for Workforce Planning Board of Grand Erie, sent us an e-mail message, as well, pointing out that an initiative called Education Works Alliance keys on the need for a more educated workforce moving ahead, which would “make our area more attractive for economic development.” A specific offshoot, he said, is a campaign entitled Education Works Champions, which has been developed in partnership with the Brantford Expositor. People in the community, he explained, are nominated based on how they used education/training as a vehicle to achieve their goal/dreams. They will be profiling “success stories” in an upcoming special editorial section to be published in newspapers in the local green hub, including the Brant Connection and Dunnville Chronicle. A side note: At Green Matters we would like to highlight samples that have steered workers to the new green economy ….
…. We were just able to explore the tip of the iceberg about the “new green” this past week during a panel discussion on the Rogers TV Political Roundtable program. But it was a start. Host Mary O’Grady commented that the half-hour sped by. And that’s probably because the new green is all about lifestyle and a new frugality, not just clean energy, and traditional eco-issues. It’s how we choose to live. And that affects everyone. And we talked about Brantford Mayor Chris Friel’s 21st Century City vision/election platform, and how more could be done to “connect the ‘green’ dots.” To compare, we looked at what a community of comparable size, Fredericton, New Brunswick, has undertaken. And it’s not, as they say, rocket science ….
Greg McMillan is a founding partner at TheGreenHub.ca – Canada’s green news and information web portal. Feel free to contact greg@thegreenhub.ca with any comments or suggestions for topics to be covered in the Green Matters column. That could mean green lifestyle, business or human-interest items, including any personal or school-related projects or initiatives. We’ll write about people who live in The Green Hub area, which includes Brantford, Six Nations, Brant, Norfolk and Haldimand counties. Also, follow us on Twitter / @the_green_hub and @TheHubMan or Facebook / thegreenhub
