This page contains descriptions of environmental action projects presented at the Peel EcoFair. These descriptions are organized by year, beginning with the most recent EcoFair and going back to the 2003 inaugural year. Each listing includes either a brief description of the action project, or a more lengthy case study, which can be read by clicking on the appropriate links below.

2006 | 2005 | 2004| 2003

2006

1. Bronte College of Canada – Two groups of students from Bronte College of Canada researched and presented their projects about energy conservation and alternative methods of energy production. Bronte students provided EcoFair participants with a talk and a brochure on energy saving tips for the home; they also explained how hydrogen can be used as a fuel for the future.  They enjoyed the challenge of applying their projects to everyday lifestyles, sharing their findings, and exchanging different ideas with all the other participants. 
   
   
2. Fallingbrook Middle School – This ongoing stewardship project (in partnership with the City of Mississauga, the Credit Valley Conservation and Peel District School Board’s Field Centres) is aimed at protecting the school’s adjacent Creditview wetland while educating students, parents and community members.  These initiatives provide important local watershed knowledge, connections and ecosystem education for students in Grades 6, 7 and 8. Students from Fallingbrook take on leadership roles such as planning and peer instruction. Other environmental initiatives this year included a highly active environment club, recycling activities, and participation at the EcoBuzz conference.
   
   
3. Heart Lake S.S. –  Heart Lake’s E-Crew have been hard at work this year keeping their school firmly focused on making the local environment a better place to be. They had a highly successful Earth Week with the biggest result seen down at the Etobicoke Creek where 150+ students planted over 500 trees and shrubs in partnership with the Peel Environmental Youth Alliance (PEYA) and the Toronto Region Conservation Authority.
   
   Through the Otesha Project, Heart Lake has also trained a highly skilled troupe of “Hopeful High School Hooligans. These devoted actors travel to local elementary schools presenting dramatic skits to students about making environmentally and socially sound choices in their daily lives. Heart Lake is also the proud recipient of the Senior Green Team Award from the Canadian Environmental Awards.  Congratulations Heart Lake!
   
   
4. John Fraser S.S. – In partnership with Earth Day Canada, the EcoAction Team at John Fraser work in small groups with a team leader and learn how their lifestyles impact the environment and what changes they can make to reduce their ecological footprint.  The EcoAction team has been very busy this year organizing and participating in various events throughout their school and community.  These include school-wide planting, recycling awareness week, woodlot adoptions as an annual clean-up project, and participation in both the EcoBuzz and Environthon events, the EcoMentors program and PEYA membership.
   
   
5. Lorne Park S.S. – Students Against Violation of the Environment (S.A.V.E) is a student run environmental club focusing on education and action campaigns that target students, staff and parents of Lorne Park S.S. Their many initiatives include:
   
   • A petition to the Peel Board of Education to make recycling in Peel schools mandatory
   • Active recycling programs
   • Apple sales from local producers
   • Work with the Canadian Environmental Alliance and the Clean Air Campaign to promote the One Tonne Challenge
   • Work with the City of Mississauga to promote the anti-idling campaign
   • Active members of the Peel Environmental Youth Alliance (PEYA)
   • Articles in the school newspaper to update students and parents on environmental activities around the school and community
     
     
6. Peel Environmental Youth Alliance – PEYA is a network of students throughout Peel Region concerned about environmental issues and determined to make a positive change.  This group unites youth and provides a forum for students to learn from one another while working on environmental initiatives in their schools and communities.
   
   
7. Star Academy – Star Academy has been participating in a waste reduction and naturalization program that includes: a wasteless lunch campaign, school-wide composting (including vermi-composting), and drama productions with an environmental theme.  With the help and support of Evergreen and EcoSource, the students and staff at Star Academy are looking forward to improving the school environment by planting a native plant, shrub and tree garden.
   
   
8. West Acres – The students and Green Club from West Acres Elementary School have taken on three environmental projects this year.  To engage the entire school they developed a recycling challenge game to increase awareness and participation in classroom recycling.  The students are also participating in a naturalization project including an Adopt-A-Garden program.  Finally, the students will be participating in the Yellow Fish Road Project in partnership with EcoSource and the City of Mississauga.  Students will mark storm drains in their neighbourhood with a yellow fish to increase awareness in the community about the effects of stormwater pollution in our local watershed.
   
   
9. The Woodlands S.S. – Students from the Woodlands returned to the 2006 Peel EcoFair to provide an update on their water quality monitoring project in the Sawmill Creek. They also demonstrated the use of a vermi composter, which they have introduced at their school in order to reduce waste. “Dead Batteries Days” are another new initiative at Woodlands that captures batteries as household hazardous waste.  This year they captured between 50 and 60 kilograms of batteries.  The Woodlands Environment Club also sponsors a variety of Earth Week activities including: class clean-ups of grounds, presentations relating to current environmental concerns, eco-challenge games and a photo challenge school wide.  They are also one of many schools that participated in the environmentally focused conference, EcoBuzz.
   
   

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2005

1. Caledon Countryside Alliance – Case Study
   
   
2. Central Peel Secondary – Case Study
   
   
3. Credit View Public – “You can’t beat the Blue Box!” Credit View’s Grade 7 students use Blue Boxes as a percussion instrument to bring awareness to recycling. They make it a cool thing to use the Blue Boxes and reusable materials to make live music with an environmental message for young audiences. Fun, high-powered, and energizing, with a great message: “No, you can’t beat the Blue Box, but we sure try!”
   
   
4. Fallingbrook Middle – In partnership with the City of Mississauga and the Credit Valley Conservation Authority, Grade 6 students at Fallingbrook have been leading 400 student peers in naturalizing a buffer zone adjacent to the Creditview Wetland. Other than helping to organize and execute community planting days, students have been busy studying this precious ecosystem in the heart of suburbia.
   
   
5. Heart Lake Secondary – Returning to the EcoFair again this year, members of Heart Lake’s Environment Club updated participants on the successes and challenges involved in the continuing implementation of their school’s Environmental Action Plan, which includes:
   
   • ongoing EcoMentors presentations by a growing number of trained students
   • completion of the environmental mural with school’s Art Club
   • continuing recycling system
   • founding members of Peel Environmental Youth Alliance to formally network high school environment clubs
   • official EcoAction team designation
   • Ink-A-Dream printer cartridge collection
   • 2004 EcoBuzz participants
   • Enviroment Club members participated on TVO’s VoxTalk, a televised discussion of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Report and Global Warming
   • Participant in Brampton Clean City’s clean up campaign
   • School yard naturalization and restoration
     
     
6. Hickory Wood Public – Case Study
   
   
7. Hillside Public – In partnership with EcoSource Mississauga and the Evergreen Foundation, Hillside has begun greening their school. An initial waste audit has led them to start working on minimizing the school’s waste. Vermi-composting is one means for reducing organic waste while producing compost. Their compost is put to good use in the gardens of the school’s new school ground naturalization project.
   
   
8. Holy Family Elementary – In partnership with the Caledon Countryside Alliance, students at Holy Family have created an environmental skit. Performed for drivers in the school’s “Kiss n’ Ride” lanes, the skit promotes the school’s “No Idling” rule. Students have also undertaken numerous environmental tasks that contribute to earning the “Green School” designation from the Seeds Foundation.
   
   
9. Notre Dame Secondary – A group of five students from Notre Dame Special Needs Program spearhead the school’s recycling of plastic products. The students go to designated classrooms on scheduled days and cover the whole school every two weeks. They are very proud to be doing something good for their school and the environment.
   
   
10. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Secondary – A series of environmental events have been organized that involve numerous classes from across the school in order to create awareness of our environmental problems. These events have included key note speakers on environmental topics, electronics recycling, implementing the “One Tonne Challenge”, which includes promoting clean air commuting.
    
    
11. St. Edmund Elementary – Case Study
    
    
12. Thomas Street MS – Case Study
    
    
13. Woodlands Secondary - Case Study

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2004

1. Caledon Countryside Alliance - Case Study
   
   
2. Fallingbrook Middle School - In this project, Grade 7 students developed their own long-term waste management strategy (including recycling) for the Region of Peel. The students conducted all of the necessary research, including contacted personnel from the municipality and other businesses. Based on their understanding of the issues involved, students identified, visited, and photographed areas in Peel which they felt would meet the criteria for landfill development. This project’s relevance was not lost on these students, who came to recognize the importance of waster management.
   
   
3. Heart Lake Secondary – Following their participation at PDSB’s February 2004 “Changing the Global Mindset” conference, participating students from Heart Lake Secondary were inspired to create an action plan that would help make their school more environmentally friendly. Raising the level of environmental awareness in the school and the community was another goal.
   
   This all gave rise to the creation of the school’s first “Environment Club” where students discussed possible projects they could undertake. The club subsequently pursued:

• Increased Environmental Awareness
  • recruit Environment Club members
  • training of members in Earthday Canada’s “EcoMentors” program, following which trained students began to make presentations to local elementary students
  • Earth Week initiatives filled with eco-facts
  • Painting of a school mural on an environmental theme
    
• Energy conservation
  • Green School’s Energy Project
    
• Waste reduction
  • Introduction of school’s first blue box recycling system
  
  The school continues to work on their action plan, via these initiatives and others. This action plan guides the school so they stay focused on the goal of environmental friendliness, while letting everyone know that “one person can be the difference.”
  

4. Conor’s Community Project – This initiative demonstrates how one person can make a difference. As a Grade 4 student, Conor originally designed this project for a “Teach and Tell” project at school, in order that he could educate his classmates, family, and eventually his neighbourhood about the concerns of pesticide use. After doing some research on pesticides, Conor designed and distributed a brochure to his extended family, peers, and neighbours. His project was featured in an article in the local newspaper. As a result of Conor’s project, the school and neighbourhood are more aware of the possible dangers of pesticide use now, and several neighbours have discontinued using pesticides in their gardens.
   
   
5. Mississauga Girl Guides – Case Study
   
   
6. Thomas Street Middle School – Case Study
   
   
7. St. Edmund’s Elementary School – Case Study
   
   
8. University of Toronto in Mississauga (UTM) Environmental Club – This group has made significant contributions to UTM’s “Ecological Campus Restoration.” As a result of UTM’s updated Master Plan, a naturalization steering committee emerged. With upcoming and continuing developments on campus, the plan emphasized the need for ecological conservation and restoration. UTM partnered with the Evergreen Foundation and other community groups to complete naturalization plantings on campus. Walks were also initiated that emphasized the natural and cultural heritage of the campus in order to encourage stronger links between students, staff, and the community with the campus environment.
   
   
9. Woodlands Secondary School - Case Study

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2003

1. Edenwood Middle – Case Study
   
   
2. Glendale Public School – The “Sunset Gardens Naturalization Project” is an integral part of this school’s culture and reflects their respect for the environment. Students have been involved in all aspects of the garden project: planning, fundraising, planting, maintenance. A number of gardens exist around the schoolyard and are cared for by students from diverse grades. For example: Grade 2 Bird Corridor, Grade 3 Quiet Study Garden, Grade 4 Wet Meadow Habitat, Grade 5 Woodland.
   
   Students presenting at the EcoFair demonstrated substantial knowledge of native plants in their various stages of growth, as well as the interconnections in the web of life. Creative means of recruiting and motivating volunteers has been key as shown in the high participation at the “Good Dirt Day” event. Community partners have been involved in seed collecting and planting days for the Peace Garden. Via newsletters and newspaper coverage, Sunset Gardens has enjoyed significant local publicity.
   
   
3. Havenwood Public School – A “Schoolyard Meadow Naturalization Project” was begun at Havenwood PS in 1994 and has continued since that time. Students from the school’s Green Team in Grades 2-5 presented their poem at the EcoFair in order to communicate the importance of the meadow to their school. The participation in this project by students of varying ages demonstrates how succession planning contributes to the longevity of an important initiative such as this. The meadow itself focuses on native plants and creates a permeable green space that absorbs precipitation, which formerly ran off the paved surfaces. Broad participation in this naturalization project is evident throughout the school and local community. Everyone at Havenwood gets to enjoy this schoolyard meadow.
   
   
4. Hickory Wood Public School – Case Study
   
   
5. Mary Fix Catholic School – Case Study

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