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.

2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004| 2003

2007

1. Fallingbrook Middle School -
   
   There is a special and significant wetland a short walk from this school. A group of dedicated individuals from the school have committed themselves to becoming stewards of this habitat. Currently, they are co-ordinating a venture that will extend the buffer zone around the entire wetland. This will add another 400 plants to the existing buffer that they have planted. In addition, they have partnered with the City of Mississauga and the Credit Valley Conservation Authority to develop an interpretive Education Center and the north end of the Creditview Wetland. Furthermore, they are monitoring the different species living in the wetland in partnership with the Peel District School Board’s outdoor field centre staff. In the coming fall, students will offer tours of the wetland to community residents and new students. They have received donations from the Credit Valley Conservation Authority to alleviate expenses.  
   
   
   
   

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2. Mentor College Secondary School -
   
   This action project focuses on educating people on the facts that the students have learned regarding the Credit River watershed. Students have toured the watershed and spoken to experts from the Credit Valley Conservation Authority and Region of Peel. They have arrived at seven main areas they think are most important for properly understanding the watershed: water consumption, monitoring, storm sewers, sewage treatment, drinking water treatment, the watershed structure, and climate change. This research has been documented and divided into three main sections: what people they interviewed knew about the watershed, the facts they have learned, and what a resident can do. This student-produced video was presented to other students at EcoFair.
   
   

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3. Streetsville Secondary School -
   
   Students target battery recycling to divert toxic materials from the waste stream. Energizer Canada donated a plush Energizer Bunny for promotional purposes, which now acts as their recycling mascot. Other local businesses have been willing to support these efforts as well. The students have designed an excellent recycling program that ensures collection bins are located in convenient areas after recognizing the fact that walking any distance acts as a deterrent to recycling. Custodians have noted that the amount of garbage produced daily has been reduced by 30-40%. In addition, students have promoted harvesting pure aluminium can tabs. Prizes are rewarded to act as an incentive for recycling.
   
   
   

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4. St. Edmund Elementary School -
   
   In 2004, students conducted home and school water audits, and in 2005 they presented these findings at the Peel EcoFair. Despite positive changes in students’ water consumption habits, students still determined that the old, inefficient toilets and uncontrolled urinals were what attributed to the large volumes of water being used at St. Edmund Elementary School.
   In 2006, Peel Region’s Public 1Works Department sponsored the school toilet replacement pilot project at St. Edmund. This project involved the replacement of 26 toilets, 3 with dual flush toilets and 23 flush valve combination toilets. Prior the retrofit the school was using 8915 litres on average per day. After the retrofit the total water use is 2677 litres per day. That’s a savings of 6238 litres of water daily, or 70%. (Of the 6238 litres saved, 4389 are through reduced leakage, while 1850 is due to reduced flush volumes).Through the fixture replacements and awareness campaign, the Eco Kids are saving the world’s water “one drop a minute.” Students presented the findings after monitoring water consumption before and after the school retrofit.
   
   

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5. Ruth Thompson Middle School -
   
   As a participating school in EcoSource’s Green Schools Program, students have been heavily involved in tree and flower planting, school-wide recycling, walk-to-school initiatives and weekly playground clean ups. In terms of community outreach, this school has been working towards preserving local habitats by writing letters to local councillors. Furthermore, this year they have participated in programs such as a school bulb time capsule, creation and distribution of native plant seed balls during the winter holidays, litterless lunch challenges, school-wide composting, and planning an outdoor naturalization area.
   
   

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6. Heartlake Secondary School -
   
   In partnership with TRCA, Peel Environmental Youth Alliance (PEYA) and St. Marguerite D’Youville Secondary School, HLSS has continued its efforts with autumn and spring plantings in the adjacent Etobicoke Creek valley. The Otesha (drama) Project continues to inform and entertain schools across the GTA. Instead of celebrating Earth Week, HLSS celebrates Earth Month with “fair trade” fundraising, custom made buttons, recycling raffles and an anti-sweatshop mural. HLSS is now working on an “Eco-School” certification to encourage all members of the community to become role models.
   
   

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7. Stephen Lewis Secondary School -
   
   To create environmental awareness at their school, students have been involved in establishing an environment club, implementing recycling, recycling raffles, and waste audits. A number of club members regularly attend the Peel Environmental Youth Alliance (PEYA) student council meetings. They have done one clean up of the woodlot adjacent to the school. In addition, they have created re-useable notebooks and have put on an environmental awareness Christmas skit for the school. They are currently planning another clean up of the woodlot in the spring and have participated in a field trip to Peel Region’s Lorne Park Water Treatment Facility.  
   
   

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8. St. Isaac Jogues Elementary School -
   
   The environmental group at this school have taken on several initiatives in the hopes of inspiring their peers to take action, while becoming model stewards. They have participated in fall and spring clean ups, organizing several “Earth Day” presentations for Junior and Intermediate students, tree planting, recycling ink cartridges and cell phones, and running programs such as wasteless lunches and turning off the lights.
   

   
   

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9. Morton Way Public School -
   
   Morton way has been a strong advocate for “Walk a Child to School Day” since 1999. Since that time, this program has received international recognition. It promotes cleaner air, safer streets, and healthier bodies. Morton Way celebrates Walking Wednesdays, three walking weeks per year. Students are also reminded to “Spare the Air, and Save a Bear”. They are educated about the harmful effects of car exhaust on the population of polar bears, through global warming. I-WALK Club cards have been donated by Green Communities, which offer extra incentives for students who walk regularly. After 50 walks, they are submitted and students earn foot charms for their bracelets. The number of walkers (or rollers) increases to 85-95% on Wednesdays.
   
   

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10. Roberta Bondar Public School -

    Students of the environment club are known as the “Passionate Earthlings.” Together they have accomplished quite a bit, including school-wide participation in the Brampton Clean City Committee’s “Brampton Spring Clean Up”. In addition, the Passionate Earthlings organize and promote “Litterless Lunches” every Wednesday. Organic materials are collected and composted for use in their school gardens. This school also participates in Peel’s recycling program, with the Passionate Earthlings attending to the Region of Peel bins in each classroom weekly. All members of the community are encouraged to recycle ink cartridges and cell phones by dropping them into the boxes provided by “Think Green”. A tree is planted for every cell phone or ink cartridge collected.

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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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