Community Profile

George Webster Elementary School

When the five kindergarten teachers at Toronto's George Webster Elementary School needed a "Big Idea" to inspire their curriculum last year, the environment seemed perfect.

"We thought this would be a great subject. We have such a diverse population, the environment is something all kids would be able to relate to," says Anamaria Huffman, one of the teachers involved. The results ended up being as big as the idea.

The 145 or so students in the school's seven kindergarten classes began by learning the basics. They talked about living and non-living things and how everything on earth is interconnected. They learned about animals, insects and plants and their natural habitats.

From there, students began drawing conclusions. "If the air is dirty, the animals will get sick," one said. The teachers integrated lessons about the environment into various classroom activities. During story time, they read environment-themed books like Dr. Seuss's The Lorax and The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry.

Since many of the students at George Webster are new immigrants that are still learning to master English, the teachers often took a visual or tactile approach.

That included taking a "nature walk" to the little park behind the school, during which students collected samples from nature and drew pictures of what they saw.

By the end of the year, students were thinking about the environment as more than an abstract idea. The kindergarteners came up with their own ideas for helping the planet, and were talking about shutting off lights and the TV, turning off the water while teeth brushing, and handing down clothes to siblings. In the classroom, everyone began writing on both sides of paper and became very diligent about recycling.

"If I made a mistake and threw something away that should be recycled, they'd start calling me on it," recalls Huffman.

The students also took this information home. In particular, the recently immigrated families who did not fully understand Toronto's complex garbage sorting system learned from their children, and started more successfully separating their compost, recycling and garbage.

By the end of the year, everyone wanted to do more. So school principal, Nancy Steinhauer, asked a local artist to visit the classrooms and the school bought special fabric crayons and plain canvas bags. With the artist's help, all the students decorated bags with images and words related to the environment. They took them home with plans to use them for taking grocery shopping, holding books and carting around toys.

"It worked really well, they really enjoyed it. The bag was something they could take ownership of," says Huffman.

With their passion, their ideas and their beautiful canvas bags, these students proved you're never too young to do something for the planet.