Reuse, Refuse, Recycle, Repair, Reduce and Rot

Sustainability in today’s world is one of the most important concepts we can teach. 

As part of our Science and Sustainability Curriculum Learning Team, grade levels from across all sections of the school have been planning units of inquiry centered around the UN Sustainable Development Learning Goals, creating sustainability as a meaningful thread throughout the whole school. They have collaborated with Aaron Moniz from the Inspire Citizens organization, to build these units with relevant learning experiences and actionable goals.

As part of the unit, students have been thinking about ways that they can bring sustainability into their classrooms and their lives outside school. They have been doing this by using the focus of “The 6 R’s of Sustainability – Reuse, Refuse, Recycle, Repair, Reduce and Rot”.

The idea of RETHINKING our actions has also been a central idea throughout the unit. Mr. Frape (IT integration), Ms, Tara (ES Librarian) and Ms. Kerry (Outdoor Learning) planned a Sustainability Make and Take afternoon for the whole grade level. 

The aim of the afternoon was for our learners to see sustainability in action and be able to create things centered around the 6 R’s with the intention of taking these things home to share with their families and to make them think about alternative ideas. By pulling in some other willing volunteers and with the support of the homeroom teachers, they were able to plan for six different learning experiences.

Please click HERE to watch the video of Sustainability Make and Take event with our Grade 3 students, as well as the whole article.