As part of the GIRO mandate to promote practices that care for the earth and its non-renewable resources, GIRO General Manager Michelle MacEwen has been teaching a Zero Waste Program at the Gabriola Elementary School since 2014. One main goal was to establish a schoolwide classroom recycling set up, with a focus on minimizing garbage and recycling through students bringing a waste free lunch.
Michelle creates and facilitates lesson plans that engages older students in grades 4-7 to learn about their environment and how they impact it, with the aim to promote environmental stewardship. As students learn more about their affect on the environment through their daily actions they see how as individuals they can make a difference, and that collectively they can bring about change in their community and on a larger scale.
Here are some of the lesson plans carried out in the last year:
