DC Planet
Welcome to the DC Green Gallery
Under the district tabs on the left menu are the Green Gallery submissions from our schools for the 2008 / 2009 school year.
In the future we hope to expand this gallery and add search functions for grade levels and conservation campaign topics. If you have suggestions on how we can improve this section, please send them in to darla at dcplanet.ca.
Feature Campaign: SD 62 - Colwood Elementary
Lead Contact Name:
Anne-Marie Hart
& Pam Teasdale
Team name: The DC 5
Campaign Title:
Be Bright With Light
1. What was the goal of your campaign?
To save energy at our school, to save resources and our planet and to save energy costs for lighting.
2. What did you do?
- met to brainstorm ideas: continue to meet most weeks to add to our campaign
- did energy assessments around our school in several areas of energy consumption
- decided to focus on light energy and how we could use less light at certain times of the day - charted our results on a large school map to serve as a ‘before’ snapshot * we already have messages on all light switch covers in the school
- worked on presentation aids and ways to get staff and students involved in our DC campaign
- a giant light switch with ON and OFF switches, fluorescent arrows to put on the light switch plate to indicate which lights to turn on first
- created our mascot “Spike the Spark” , a slogan “Be Bright With Light” and included our campaign in our school “Colwood Cares” theme
- made posters to display in classrooms each day, to thank them for saving light energy
- made posters for the hall bulletin boards
- covered a yellow ice-cream bucket for our comic strip entries
- recycled yellow ‘Bubblicious’ t-shirts which were bright yellow, by ironing on yellow fabric to cover the old logo and painting on our slogan and mascot; to be worn by our DC 5 to promote our campaign
- presented our campaign to the whole school at an assembly
- started a bulletin board in the main hall
- put fluorescent orange MacTac arrows above two out of four light switches in each room
- asked our custodian to turn off the change room lights and washroom nights each evening, rather than leave them on all night
- asked teachers to just turn on needed lights when they arrived in the morning
- asked teachers to choose a light monitor in each of their classrooms, to be responsible for turning off the lights when they left for P.E, library, computer lab, etc.
- made announcements on the PA system “brought to you be the DC 5 and Spike the Spark”
- asked all students to draw a comic strip to encourage saving light energy. Selected comics have appeared in the school newsletter
- advertised “Earth Hour” for school and home with posters and several PA announcements; registered with our high school and on line nationally
- read and did the activities in the Eco Energy, National Resources Canada booklet “Energy and the Environment Activity Booklets” that were sent to our school in February
- advertised for ” Lunch without Lights” days to take place on Thursdays each week
- contacted BC Hydro, who will send us “Turn It Off” stickers for students to take home
- will be presenting our campaign to the School District meeting held at our school, April 14
- plan to do a follow up skit at an assembly, to keep interest and involvement in our campaign
- plan to participate in “Lights Out Canada” on Earth Day, April 22
3. What was the best part of your campaign?
Preparing for and giving the presentation in front of the whole school, making our announcements over the PA, drawing ideas for our mascot, going to the other schools and hearing what other groups were doing as well as learning about energy.
4. What advice would you give other schools that wanted to do a similar campaign?
Make it fun
Engage the students
Start early and have regular meetings
5. What did people say about the campaign at your school? Teachers, students, staff, custodians or parents?
- Students and Teachers are making more of an effort to turn off the lights at school and at home.
- They liked the announcements, posters and Spike the Spark.
- The students, especially the primary students liked it when they got a “Thanks for Being Bright With Light” poster on their board.
6. Did you reach your goal? What were the results?
Our campaign is ongoing. We plan to add data to our school map this month and then at the end of the year to see if more lights are off at noon and recess when everyone has left their classrooms to go outside.
7. Anything else you would like to share?
- Our DC 5 team is comprised of 5 grade 5 students. Next year we will be losing one student to another school and will plan to bring two new Grade 5 students to join the team. This way, we will have experienced team members to start the year each September.
- Ask the grade 5 teachers to include a positive comment on the DC 5 students report cards. At the end of the year, again recognize these students at an assembly.
