Students love using the white boards to answer questions that would traditionally have been done with pencil and paper. This tool has been helpful for teachers to get a quick snapshot of whether students are able to complete questions. Not only does this provide teachers with a great formative assessment tool, it provides our recycling bins with a lot less waste and keeps all students engaged! To learn more about this initiative, please contact M. Ottenbreit. (January, 2010)

The entire school was dedicated to collecting as many plastic bags as possible and the community became involved as well. In the end, we collected over 5100 plastic bags in total and, as a result of our efforts and dedication to recycling, we were one of the schools from across the province to win a bench made entirely of recycled plastic bags! The bench was delivered to our school by Take Pride Winnipeg's Tom Ethans and now sits in our foyer to remind us all of our hard work. Bravo Ecole Assiniboine Students! To learn more about this initiative, please contact R. Boyko. (January, 2010)

More than 8000 tones are used each year which equals approximately 50000 trees! The Green Team made reusable gift bags and then were given enough gift bags for their class. They shared what they had learned with their class and each student in the school was able to make a reusable gift bag to take home. To learn more about this initiative, please contact T. Jensen. (December, 2009)

Any scraps of paper, magazines, newspaper, and plastic bottles are placed in our reuse bins. The re-using of products is where the majority of our eco-friendliness happens. Parents and teachers are continually donating old magazines for our collage projects, as well as yogurt cups and plastic lids for the students to use when painting. For certain projects, we have collected pop bottles, scraps of fabric, ribbons, cardboard boxes, and puzzle pieces. Leftover and unused art supplies are placed into containers that the students can use at any time. A goal of the art room is to provide students with a highly creative art experience, but with a sustainable art practice as well. To learn more about this initiative, please contact Ms. K. Spalding. (December, 2009)

In fact, you may be the type of person who saves everything, thinking some day these odds and ends could come in handy...old lids, twist ties, rubber bands, buttons, spools from thread, and even wine corks. If you are an artist or art educator, I'm sure you ARE this type of person. Bruce Middle School students, however, may be used to seeing such items take up space in the garage, attic, basement, recycling bin, or worse, the trash. Mrs. Tina Nowosad, visual art teacher at Bruce Middle School, wanted her students to become aware of some of the everyday household items that are too quickly used, forgotten, and discarded. With a little vision, planning, and creative problem solving, students took some of their "trash" and turned it into treasures. One thing that the students discussed most was how presents are often wrapped in paper which often gets thrown out and not reused. If it wasn't used in the first place, it would not be thrown out. Why not make some reusable gift bags? They can be made to be strong and passed from one person to the next. Students were asked to bring in old decks of playing cards that would be turned into reusable gift bags. Students found that most of their parents had a partially used roll of packing tape or duct tape at home, so this became the "glue." The tape also made the bags somewhat waterproof, and very strong. The handles are made from old shoelaces, ribbon, or the handles from old gift bags. The cards brought in demonstrated the varying interests, collections, and tastes of the students. Soon, the students discovered that the bags could be made from other used paper materials, like paint samples, newspaper, photographs, and raffle tickets. Not only could bags be made, but also wallets, coupon books, and even purses could be fashioned out of items in the "junk drawer".

One of the smallest and coolest projects involved taking used bottle caps and turning them into personalized locker magnets. The grade seven and eight art students gained a few things from this "Trash to Treasures" exploration. First, the idea that they can often "look around the house" and reuse some of the items they consider recyclable or trash. Second, that they can make needed items (wallet, etc.) with the resources they have, and not always buy things new. And finally, the hope they will look at the multitude of items around them and see future possibilities for these that don't include a trip to the blue bin or the trash can. Oh, and did we mention...FUN? To learn more about this initiative, please contact Mrs. Tina Nowosad (November 2009)

Students are challenged to bring in as many plastic bags as possible. We will collect the bags, count them, and have them ready for collection by BFI Canada between November 16 - 20. Top schools could win a bench made from recycled plastic bags and all schools receive plastic bag frisbees for their contribution to recycling. Congratulations also to Mme Johnson’s Grade Three/Four class which was invited to attend the Media Launch of the Plastic Bag Roundup challenge at the Madison Square Safeway on October 27th. Mme Johnson’s classroom was chosen to represent our school and presented their thoughts about why it is important to recycle. They were also on both the CBC evening news and CityTv Breakfast Television news. The students were excellent representatives for our school and should be commended for their efforts and commitment to making our world a better place! BRAVO! To learn more about this initiative, please contact please contact Roné Boyko, Vice-Principal, École Assiniboine School. (October, 2009)

Their latest project was the Crestview School Plastic Bag Roundup that took place in November of 2008. Take Pride Winnipeg ran a challenge to elementary schools across the city to recycle plastic bags into Frisbees. The Crestview School Green Team was definitely excited and ready for the challenge! The Green Team first created a plastic bag awareness video that was presented prior to the week of the roundup. The video was played over the school's video broadcast centre to all classrooms and showed students what happens when plastic bags are not recycled. Students were encouraged to bring as many plastic bags as they could each day and Green Team members collected each classes’ bags every morning. Bags were counted and recorded daily with the top three classes displayed on a Green Team board next to the rising plastic bag thermometer. The goal was for students to bring 2,000 plastic bags. Amazingly, after just five days, a total of 5,149 bags had been collected! The Green Team is thrilled to know that 5,149 plastic bags from the community, that may have ended up in the landfill, will now be made into 50 Frisbees that Crestview School students will have the opportunity to enjoy! To learn more about this initiative, please contact Sandra Simpson, Principal of Crestview School.  (November 2008)

Thanks to funding from Manitoba Conservation, we are partnering with Emerge Knowledge Design Inc. to implement a new sustainability initiative: Re-TRAC. Using Re-TRAC, a web-based solid waste and recycling data management and reporting tool develped by Emerge Knowledge, custodial staff monitor and input into Re-TRAC the amount of waste and recycling that is produced weekly at each school. This data is enabling the division to analyze and manage our waste and recycling collection needs towards "right-sizing" service to save money. Importantly, this also enables schools to track and benchmark waste and recycling rates to measure the results of waste reduction programs with the goal of communicating results, improving programs, realizing the economic benefits of reducing waste, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is an exciting and practical example of implementing a sustainability initiative! We would like to extend a special thank you to our dedicated custodial staff for monitoring our recycling and solid waste collection bins and for entering this data into Re-TRAC. To learn more about this initiative, please contact Brett Lough, Assistant Superintendent of Administration, Planning & Research. Phone: 888-7951 ext. 228. (Autumn 2009)