Recognizing our certified Ontario EcoSchools

The Ottawa Catholic School Board is proud to have 59 certified Ontario EcoSchools. That’s 71% of our schools! This special provincial certification allows our schools to be recognized and celebrated by our community for their achievement in environmental education and action. The EcoSchools initiative uses an innovative teaching model that helps students develop ecological literacy while engaging in practices to become environmentally responsible citizens. Our Board believes in this cause, and it is clear that our school and staff do as well.

How our schools become certified

Each school forms an EcoTeam which review their school’s energy and waste practices. They use this information to create and implement a formal action plan for improvement. Once they put their plan into place, the EcoTeams review their hard work every three months. The process is very detailed, and each step is documented by Ontario EcoSchools. EcoSchools certification provides a rigorous province-wide set of criteria to award points to each school. These points help determine which level of certification our schools receive. Upon certification, each school will receive an EcoSchools plaque and a seal for every year of certification.

To become certified, a school must demonstrate achievement in at least four key areas:

• energy conservation
• waste minimization
• ecological literacy
• school ground greening

Ontario EcoSchools is an environmental education and certification program for grades K-12 that helps school communities develop both ecological literacy and environmental practices to become environmentally responsible citizens and reduce the environmental footprint of schools.