Earth Week

Posted on April 21, 2015 by admin

Welcome to Earth Week at LCC!

Nine years ago LCC began a major overhaul of key elements of school operations aimed at minimizing our impact on the local environment. Significant funds were spent on new energy efficient furnaces, renewal of old ventilation systems, and the installation of energy efficient lighting. We know that those system changes have saved the school well over $1million in energy costs.

For the past several years one of our school’s strategic priorities has been a greater concentration on enhanced environmental practices. Many projects have been initiated. We now work with an outside environmental consulting company and concentrate on eight separate categories for environmental enhancement. Most are measurable and provide concrete evidence and benchmarks of how we are doing from year to year. The 8 areas are the following:

Energy Consumption
Procurement
Waste management
Water management
Emissions
Land use
Food systems
Community Outreach & Education

In each of these categories we can measure from year to year how well we are doing. For example, last year we saved 35-thousand litres of water per- student because of system enhancements, and over the year we also saved approximately 36-hundred kilowatts of power per student. We will have data for each of the categories again at the end of this school year for comparative purposes.

In 2010 our Board formally adopted a “Sustainability Commitment” to guide us institutionally and our students have become active as members of our Green Team and Junior School Recycling Squad. It is impressive to witness students teaching students on this topic that is so vital for our future in Canada and across the community of nations.

My thanks to students who are committed volunteers, especially Green Team members for their leadership, initiative and courage in the name of sustainability. Whether it’s an anti-idling campaign, “no-waste lunches”, our students are proactive and are making a difference.

We only have one planet. However large or small, let’s all find ways to protect our natural world. We need to share the mindset that we do so for our children’s children’s children and beyond. – Chris Shannon, Headmaster

The LCC Tree: Put the Right Waste in the Right Place!

Posted on November 17, 2014 by admin

Our home planet, Earth, is not in good condition. We’re in the midst of a mass extinction; our atmosphere has 400 parts carbon dioxide out of any given million particles and there are still many people who aren’t yet aware of this.

So how can we, the citizens of this world, help it?

First and foremost, it would help a lot if we focus on our day-to-day habits. You know, the little things people like to do everyday that can pass as unimportant, but after daily repetition, it can become a big deal. It is like saving a nickel every day: nothing of value is earned in the short term, but over the course of 50 years, you get to earn around $900.

Unfortunately, the same is very true for an issue such as waste. A person throws away a plastic cup that could have been recycled in the trash. No biggie, right? Except instead of one person, it’s three quarters of a nation (let’s say, roughly 26 million people), and instead of once in their entire lifetimes, it’s once a day. Even now, it’s not entirely unconceivable that everyone throws away more than one cup a day. Rather, it’s around two or three cups. Running quickly through the numbers for a period of one year, all of a sudden, we have around 1,898,000,000 plastic cups ending up in our dumps when they should be recycled. That’s 1.9 BILLION cups!

To illustrate, take the image of this number line, where the left end represents 0, and the right end, 1 billion:

0——————————————————————————————————— 1 B

To visualize just 1000, here’s 1000 dollar signs:

That same 1000, however, will only be around where the asterisk is:

0 *————————————————————————————————————1 B

(Keep in mind 1 million thousands = 1 billion)

So what happens?

To manage this preventable crisis, this imaginary nation will now have to spend a lot more energy than necessary to deal with this trash.

What can we do then?

The solution is actually super simple and easy to do: Put the right waste in the right place!

It honestly and literally takes you one calorie and two seconds a day just to move yourself to a different bin to get rid of your waste, and because of that, congrats! You just saved yourself the money it takes to deal with 1.9 billion cups!

You’re already seeing this in action: the lights are off during bright days on Senior School lunches in the dining room. Although people hardly notice this, it can add up to a great deal, just like the plastic cup plight I described earlier, but with good things.

Also, there will soon be people regularly stationed around the bins in the dining room to remind you where everything should go. Expect, in the long term, for the three bins to also change a bit. – Andrew Zhang ’17

Media Archives:

A love letter to food: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5i-dCv7O8o

More information on the 400 parts per million issue: http://400.350.org/

First Edition of The LCC Tree: Treetober!

Posted on October 20, 2014 by admin

Hello Lions! Welcome to the first post of The LCC Tree, a blog that discusses one environmental topic once a month. This blog will also include really easy tips on what you can do as a person to help, and will also contain initiatives that the SS Green Team will be organizing so you know what you can do to help out at LCC. Finally, to keep things interesting, at the end of each blog, there will be a variety of media links, including informational sites, fact sheets and other web blogs, you can look into if you want to know more.

As our trees are just finishing their spectacular firework of the different tones of red, yellow and orange, what better topic is there to discuss this month other than those very things: trees.

Trees are a catalyst for life in many aspects. Obviously, their most important role is to consume carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and return the precious oxygen that all life forms on earth require, however, did you know there are over a dozen other ways that trees can contribute to our overall life quality?

Let’s start with a few other oftentimes-unseen uses. First of all, trees provide a basis for life for many animal species and foster ecosystems necessary for the survival of many individuals. In fact, coming from the World Wild Life organization, 80% of all land biodiversity exists in and depends on forests and wooded areas. This means that without trees, most of the animals and plants we have come to know and love will never be able to exist.

Not to mention, we ourselves also depend on forests in our lives. Wood is used in many of our buildings (just look at our LCC dining room!) as well as the making of many commodities. What is a pencil made of? What type of material is your desk, in school and in your home, made from? Where did we get the paper in our notebooks, and in our annual LCC Reads, The Alchemist? Furthermore, I should mention that trees contribute about $24 billion dollars to our economy in Canada, generates more than 190 000 jobs in the forest industry and is the reason why Canada is the primary newsprint producer. So you can see here how we as humans depend on this resource.

Trees also take part in improving our mood as they add color and vigour to our regular, and sometimes repetitive, lives, especially during the fall season. Every morning, when you arrive to school by bus, car, bike or other means, if you have stopped for a moment and looked at our LCC campus or the trees planted along Monkland, you will know what I mean. The vibrant and picturesque colours of those trees have a certain calming effect on the street and our campus.

Sadly, because 80% of all land biodiversity depends on wooded areas, this makes deforestation a pretty effective method of exterminating life on our planet. However, what can we as the population do?

Ways you can help

The easiest and most efficient of all methods is probably to reuse paper and recycle it properly. Reusing paper will not only save you money but lets you make the most of each tree which was put into the composition of the paper. Got a used piece of paper that’s still blank on one side? Keep it in a separate box as scrap paper, so whenever you want to write calculations for a math assignment or plan out an outline for an english essay, you can reuse the paper. Teachers also keep a special box for scrap paper as well, so if you have any paper that’s still blank on one side during class, don’t be afraid to give it to your teacher as spare paper!

If it’s not possible to do the above, you can also opt to recycle the paper. Recycling is a great alternative, albeit not as good as reusing before recycling. When recycling, however, be conscious about other things you are putting into the recycling bin. Paper can be recycled with other paper products so long as it doesn’t have any sort of paint or glue on the paper. This is because the process of recycling paper uses a lot of water, so paint or glue will affect the final outcome after recycling. Moreover, if a paper recycling bin contains something else that’s not a paper product, that entire bin cannot be recycled unless that object is removed, so if you are recycling, you must be careful with what you put into your recycling bin.

IMPORTANT!

As a reminder, LCC’s green, plastic recycling boxes only recycle clean products. This means if you plan to recycle carton, plastic, paper, juice boxes or others, be sure they don’t have anything inside or on the product. For paper, watch for paint and glue as they disrupt their recycling process. For juice boxes and other fluid containers, be sure that they don’t have any juice, milk, etc. in them before putting them in the recycling bins. This goes for the metallic recycling bins as well.

Finally, if you would like to extend your support again at LCC, you can always participate in the SS Green Team’s Treetober Campaign. Starting from October 22 until Halloween, during the advisory periods, we will be accepting donations for the organization we are supporting: One Tree Planted. If you make a donation of $15 or more, you will also be given a free Tree Hugger t-shirt!

For all of Senior School, there will also be a bake sale during the lunch period on October 22. Last but not least, there will also be t-shirt raffles happening in the house office and in and around locker rooms for a chance to win another free Tree Hugger t-shirt! One ticket costs $2 but three tickets will cost $5, and along with the purchase of each ticket, you will also obtain some candy along with it. – Andrew Zhang ’17

Media Archives

Learn more about the organization supported by Treetober! http://onetreeplanted.org/

If you would like to support One Tree Planted and its cause via online donations, you may also donate here.

Another way you can help the environment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iIkOi3srLo

Know how to properly recycle not only paper, metal and plastic, but also books, old computers, bottle caps, old furniture, and more. In short, visiting this site basically makes you a recycling master: http://www.earth911.com

If you’re interested in reading some more, here’s another blog about the environment written by Hannah Alper, a young person passionate about the environment: http://www.callmehannah.ca/

Des nouvelles de la classe nature du groupe de 6e année

Posted on June 11, 2014 by admin

La nourriture du camp

WOW! C’est tout ce que je peux vous dire. Végétarien, allergie ou n’importe quoi, il y a toujours de la bonne nourriture pour toi! Aujourd’hui pour le déjeuner on a mangé des croissants au fromage et jambon avec des patates rôties. Vu que je suis végétarien, j’ai eu tout ça, sauf le jambon. Pour le diner, mes copains ont mangé des sous-marins au steak. Moi, j’ai mangé un sous-marin rempli de légumes. Miam! Je suis excité par la nourriture qui nous attend. Je suis sur la pointe des pieds pour savoir ce qu’on mangera au prochain repas. —Gil Salzman ’19

Une activité que tu as aimée

L’activité que j’ai aimée le plus était le lab et quand j’ai nagé. Dans le lab, on a fait de la neige artificielle. J’étais avec Mandy et on a fait de la neige bleu pâle. La deuxième expérience qu’on a faite est une réaction chimique avec des boules et de la mousse.

Quand on est allé nager, Raymond a attrapé trois écrevisses en une ou deux heures. Il y avait une petite chute qui était vraiment forte. C’était vraiment intéressant.

C’était mes deux activités préférées. —Amanda Howard ’19

Vidéoconférence avec le Sedna IV

Posted on June 5, 2014 by admin

Dans le cadre de l’année de la biodiversité, un groupe de scientifiques québécois est parti faire le tour du monde à bord d’un bateau à vocation scientifique. Vous pouvez trouvez plus d’information sur le voyage en cliquant sur ce lien: 1000 jours sur la planète. La classe de 8e année a eu l’opportunité de parler avec Émilie Walsh qui est la responsable de la communication sur le Sedna.

Voici quelques commentaires des élèves:

J’ai appris que, quand vous faites quelque choses que vous aimez, les problèmes qui vous arrivent ne sont pas si pire. – Abby Shine ’17

J’ai appris que nous pensons qu’il y a environ 30 millions espèces, nous n’en connaissons que 2 millions. – Adam Vandenbussche ’17

J’ai appris qu’en plus d’observer des espèces, les personnes sur le Sedna découvrent les cultures différentes des endroits qu’ils visitent. – Erika Kaperonis ’17

J’ai appris que la vie peut être difficile et que la vie est très différente que la vie des villes. – Max Topiol ’17

La conférence web avec Émilie Walsh m’a permet de connaitre de nouvelles cultures que certains d’autres pays possèdent. – Andrew Zhang ’17

J’ai appris que vivre sans votre famille pour très longtemps n’est pas si difficile si on fait des liens inséparables avec des amis. – Sam Freder ’17

Dans le chat vidéo, j’ai appris qu’il peut y avoir des conditions très difficiles lorsque vous êtes en mer, et que vous avez besoin d’apprendre comment faire face à ces conditions. – Ryan Garber ’17

J’ai appris que la vie sur un bateau n’est pas toujours facile, mais c’est une excellente expérience qui vaut toutes les conséquences qui l’accompagnent. – Alyssa Howard ’17

Vivre sur le Sedna est une expérience unique car ils ont la chance de parler à beaucoup d’explorateurs pour apprendre plus sur la biodiversité et apprendre sur différentes espèces d’animaux très rares. – Priscilla Johnson ’17

Émilie a eu plusieurs expériences très spéciales qu’elle a vécu comme son expérience où des hommes dansaient avec la musique diabolique et commençaient à se battre. Je pense que cela était très intéressant pour elle. – Thomas Lalonde ’17

J’ai appris qu’Il y a seulement 2 millions de espèce d’animaux connus mais que les scientifiques estiment qu’il y en a plus de 30 millions d’espèces qui ne sont pas encore découvertes. – Philippe Miller ’17

Émilie Walsh travaille TRÈS fort pour aider notre environnement et communiquer les nouvelles découvertes et la vie sur le Sedna est pas mal difficile. – Lucia Huang ’17

J’ai appris qu’avec la technologie sur un bateau on peut utiliser Skype pour parler avec sa famille, alors ce n’est pas si dure de vivre sur un bateau pendant si longtemps sans sa famille. – Adam Mahrouse ’17

Émilie à connu des chercheurs qui ont retrouvé 3 nouvelles espèces de poissons à l’Île de la Réunion quand le volcan à explosé. – Ben Rossy ’17

Émilie nous a décrit quelques anecdotes et ses adventures intéressants qui prouvent son esprit aventureux. – Alyssa Cohen ’17

La vie sur un bateau peut être difficile, mais les défis valent les expériences qu’on gagne. – Julia Leb ’17

J’ai appris qu’il ne mangeait pas beaucoup de poissons sur le bateau, ce qui m’a surpris. – Paul Virally ’17

J’ai appris que la vie sur le Sedna n’est pas tout à fait facile mais, que les gens à bord (comme Émilie) travaillent extrêmement fort et qu’ils adorent leur travail. – Sophie Rivest ’17

J’ai appris qu’ils mangent plus de poulet que de poisson sur le bateau. – Eli Samuel ’17