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Top marks for Norfolk’s eco-friendly schools

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Norfolk County schools get good grades when it comes to being eco-friendly.

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Grand Erie District School Board had 38 schools earn their EcoSchools Certification, with 11 of those schools located in Norfolk County.

“We’re extremely proud of what our EcoTeams have achieved this year,” said Katie Hashimoto, Supervisor of Energy and Environmental Conservation at the Board in a press release. “Fostering student leadership and becoming stronger environmental stewards is part of the EcoSchools certification process. What these schools are doing will have a lasting impact.”

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The schools are monitored by members of the board to see what is being done to improve the school’s environmental foot print. Based on what the schools are doing to participate they are awarded a level within the ranks of platinum, gold, silver, and bronze.

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The Gold EcoSchools in Norfolk County are Bloomsburg Public School, Delhi Public School, Walsh Public School, Waterford District High School, and West Lynn Public School.

Delhi Public School has an Eco Club that creates themed days surrounding environmentalism for the school to participate in. Two of the members of the club are Grade 7 students Hollie Martin and Kylie Bissonnette.

“We do lots of little recyclable crafts throughout the year,” said Martin. “The intermediates will periodically go out on the yard and make sure there’s no garbage.”

“We try to get them to use as much reusable things as we can,” said Bissonnette.

The pair talked about holding “Boomerang Lunches” where the students either bring their lunch in reusable containers, or they have to take all of the garbage they bring in their lunches back home.

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West Lynn’s principal, Dennis Wright, said, “One of the main things is our recycling program at the school, we have a student crew that takes care of that for us.”

They have also replaced their fountains with ones that are capable of refilling water bottles, encouraging the students to bring in reusable bottles.

“The board has a cool new way of monitoring energy usage as well, so they monitor the schools and encourage us to cut down,” said Wright. “We can actually show the kids how much electricity we might use in a day.”

The Silver EcoSchools from Norfolk County are Boston Public School, Lakewood Elementary School, Langton Public School, Lynndale Heights Public School, and Teeterville Public School.

The Bronze EcoSchool from Norfolk is Houghton Public School.

The EcoSchools program connects to Grand Erie’s Multi-Year Plan, Success for Every Student, through the Environment indicator and the goal of “improving energy and environmental conservation at all sites.”

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