Green Schools Nova Scotia

By Eleanor Willner-Fraser, NSEN Community Engagement Volunteer

Green Schools Nova Scotia is an Efficiency Nova Scotia initiative that encourages and supports energy efficiency in Nova Scotia schools as a way to address climate change. The aim is to promote environmentally-friendly behaviours that will stick around for good. Behaviour change company Thinkwell Shift has been delivering the program since 2015. The Green Schools NS program is centred around five pillars: Getting Started with Energy, Minimizing Waste, Using Water Responsibly, Living and Moving Green, and Supporting Local.

Green Schools NS connects with over 340 schools and over 28,000 students across the province. The schools include First Nations schools, preschools, private schools, and schools belonging to the Conseil Scolaire Acadien Provincial, and students range from Grade Primary to Grade 12. Engagement officers for the Halifax, Cape Breton, and Valley regions offer free participatory engagements on energy efficiency to classes, as well as support for schools' Green Teams.
The Green Schools NS website has a wide variety of curriculum-linked resources for teachers, students, and Green Teams. Examples include activities to educate students about behaviours that use more energy, as well as support packages for eco-friendly initiatives like Earth Hour.

Traditionally, Green Schools NS delivered a combination of in-person and virtual engagements to classes, available in both English and French. Whatever the delivery format, the engagements typically consisted of a brief energy efficiency presentation, then an interactive activity followed by a brainstorming session and a commitment to take action. The use of webinars has allowed Green Schools NS to reach a wider audience, including students in remote communities.

With the school closures in March 2020, Green Schools NS started running free 30-minute webinars for children at home. The webinars ranged from stories and crafts for students in younger grades to climate change discussions for older ones and allowed children to connect with their classmates and students in other parts of the province. Green Schools NS even provided how-to sessions on remote teaching to Nova Scotia teachers.

The program also started offering webinars to teachers and their classes, again in English and French. Both types of webinars proved popular as students studied at home. During the 2020-2021 school year, Green Schools NS continues to offer only virtual engagements for schools. Schools can reach out to info@greenschoolsns.ca or 902-407-2513 for more information about joining the Green Schools program, and anyone can access Green Schools NS's many energy efficiency resources.