Going Green; Going Natural - Campus Naturalization in 2010

For the past eight years, the Junior School has led College-wide efforts to support external environmental courses for Earth Day. Two years ago HSC’s Senior Environment Club launched a small scale project to add patches of native trees and grasses on our upper campus. This year, as an integrated local celebration of Earth Day, students College-wide will be involved in growing stock and planting a significant corridor of Carolinian savannah along the western side of the campus. This project has been supported by the Hamilton Youth Action Council of the Hamilton Community Foundation through their POET grants (Protecting Our Environment Together), and this year, for the first time, by Metro Supermarkets through their Green Apple School Program.

On February 19, 2010 Dr. Matthews was presented with a cheque in the amount of $1,000 from Metro’s Green Apple School Program. The Green Apple School Program is a Metro initiative created to encourage conservation and healthy living. Metro has invested $1 million into the program, and will provide hundreds of $1,000 grants to Primary and Secondary schools with big ideas for green projects in their communities. To learn more about the Green Apple School Program visit www.greenapplegrants.ca.

Over the next several years our goal at HSC is to establish a one kilometer loop of native vegetation to provide habitat, to encourage environmental education, to make the campus a more natural place, to reduce our carbon footprint, and to provide a walking/running loop that is aesthetic and restorative.

Immediately after the March Break, many classrooms that have appropriate window space or light will be starting a wide variety of native grasses and prairie wildflowers in cell packs, and growing them to seedling size. Students in classes without appropriate space will be encouraged to team up with other classes. Students will receive information about planting and plant care, local native habitats, and habitat restoration as part of the project. We hope to raise at least 2,000 perennial seedlings in time for our spring planting day. If families have recyclable cell packs (the little four- and six-celled plastic containers in which annuals are purchased) we would love to have your extras, to help keep costs and waste down. They can be left outside the Biology classroom (Y1) on the lower floor of the Young Building or outside the Grade 3 classrooms in the Killip Extension. Parents who have horticultural knowledge are also encouraged to contact classroom teachers to offer help with seedling care.

On Earth Day (April 22) the Grade 10 Geography classes will be planting 300 oak seedlings and a few larger trees along a corridor about 200m long near Garth Street. There will be a school ceremony to officially launch the planting project, and to unveil a sign describing the project and acknowledging our sponsors. There will be fundraising activities in the various schools to raise money for the continuing planting project. If any parents have or know of a contact with equipment that could be used to plough a corridor about 200m long by 15m wide in advance of Earth Day, it would be greatly appreciated.

In mid-May we will have a couple of designated days for planting. If everything goes according to plan, we should be able to have at least two seedlings per student. Each child will dig, prepare, plant, cover, and mulch their plants.

There is also an opportunity for families to get involved by donating larger trees as tributes or memorials. For between $300 and $500 (tax deductible), a moderate-sized oak with a brass plaque set in stone can add instant vertical dimension to the project and provide a century of remembrance. For details please contact Dr. Moffatt at david.moffatt@hsc.on.ca or Adrienne Davidson adrienne.davidson@hsc.on.ca.

Together we can all make a difference.