April is Earth Month, and over the next four weeks, OCSB students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 will participate in various activities celebrating God’s creation and promoting environmental conservation and sustainability.
Integrating Environmental Learning
Our #ocsbEarth team has organized several opportunities in April for students to explore and engage in hands-on activities to encourage them to become environmentally responsible citizens and stewards of God’s Creation. This includes challenging students to bring awareness and action to our OCSB community by creating a poster highlighting one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals associated with the environment.
Several professional development sessions are planned this month to support educators in integrating environmental-themed activities throughout the curriculum. On Earth Day (April 22), many of our educators will gather at the Baxter Conservation area for interactive workshops showcasing ideas for taking the curriculum outside. The environment can provide an inspirational starting point for creativity in Math, English, Science, French, and the Arts.
#ocsbEarth Month Highlights
| Grade | Activities and events | Date |
| 3-6 | Global Ocean Chat – Author Rochelle Strauss and illustrator Natasha Donovan explore the book The Global Ocean. They will share insightful information about oceans, as well as important issues and how we can help! Natasha will be leading students in a drawing. | April 3 |
| K 1-3 4-6 7-12 | Land Acknowledgment Lesson – Our Indigenous Education team will conduct virtual, age-appropriate learning sessions teaching about the significance of Land Acknowledgements and then work collaboratively with students to write personalized land acknowledgments. There will also be discussions about how we can live the land acknowledgments. | April 5 |
| 3-8 9-12 | Mi’kmaq Teachings About Land as a Relation – Carolynne Crawley will share perspectives about how to live in a good relationship with the lands, waters, and all beings. | April 11 |
| K-3 | Scratch Jr – Coding using ScratchJr with an environmental theme. | April 12 |
| 3-6 | Coding with micro:bit Coding – a virtual coding lesson about protecting trees. | April 12 |
| K-6 | Lecture du livre – Mission: Sauvons la planète! – Our FSL team reads the French book Mission: Sauvons la planète!, which talks about ways to save the planet. | April 17 |
| 4-7 | Energy Efficient micro:bit – students will explore how micro:bits can be used to gather data about energy use and using the built-in light sensor of the V2 micro:bit to collect valuable data about energy use in our schools. | April 17 |
| 5-8 9-12 | Junior and Senior Environmental Career Panels sponsored by the Ottawa Network for Education. Panellists working in the areas of sustainability and the environment will share information about their career and education pathways and field of work and help students explore the variety of jobs crucial for the survival of our planet. | April 20 April 21 |
| K-2 3-5 6-8 | Environmental Activity Sessions – in partnership with TVO Digital Learning. Interactive activity sessions focus on Plant/Ecosystem/Habitats catered to the appropriate grade levels. | Apri 24 |
| K-3 | Jay Odjick – The Anishinabe writer, artist, and television producer, will read Blackflies – the Robert Munsch book he illustrated. He will also teach students 5-step nature drawings. | April 26 |
Join Us on Social Media
Start the Earth Month conversation at home. Join us on social media as we celebrate #ocsbEarth Month in our schools. Our educators will share what’s happening in their classrooms using our #ocsbEarth hashtag, or you can follow our environmental tweets @ocsbEco.
Encourage a Love for the Environment at Home
There are many simple things families can do to encourage a love for the Environment:
- Go for nature walks.
- Start a leaf collection in the fall and try to identify many species of trees.
- Plant a window sill garden at home.
- Go bird watching.
- Identify and research insects you see outdoors.
- Improve your family’s composting/recycling routines. Challenge yourself to produce only one ice cream container of garbage each week.
- Reduce the use of single-use plastics.
- Clean up your neighbourhood!