The Enviography of a North Toronto School

As Yorkdale Adult Learning Centre and Secondary School entered its third decade, staff and students reflected not only on our original mandate as a vocational school but also on the many changes that have taken place over the years. Since its founding in 1963, Yorkdale has served this north Toronto neighbourhood in several capacities.

Classes that were once filled with students learning the environmental, culinary, wood, machine, and metal trades, were replaced in 1999 by new classes teaching CISCO, Dreamweaver, ACCPAK, Cosmetology, Edvance, and CO-OP for foreign-trained professionals. And now, a new school takes over in 2006-2007, ready to continue the green and educational journey.

In addition to the ongoing interest in new technologies, however, green awareness of the blue planet is becoming increasingly urgent: a glance through the newspapers indicates little good news about our environment: ozone holes in the ionosphere, accelerated glacial melt, 'dead zones' in Lake Erie and in the Gulf of Mexico, fertilizer-induced algae blooms in Lake Winnipeg, obstructed Atlantic currents, residual mercury contamination at Grassy Narrows, and the harmful effects of sour gas flares on the memory capacity of honey bees.

The advice to 'think globally, act locally' has inspired us here at Yorkdale to do our bit. Fortunate to have a functional greenhouse, we hope that with projects like these, staff and students will re-discover a bit of the budding environmental consciousness of the 60s and 70s which spurred school boards and government to construct large glass houses for no other purpose than to explore the interdependence of all living things.

We looked for nut trees in particular for their productive value, specimens whose nuts future students here at Yorkdale could harvest in the greenhouse. The Green Committee was delighted when Canada Trust's Friends of the Environment Foundation notified us in the winter of 2000 that financial assistance for a springtime naturalization project was on the way.

In the spring of 2000, when schools around the country were looking for interesting ways to welcome in the third millennium, the Green Committee speculated how this corner of North America might have appeared in its original state. A bit of investigating showed innumerable pine, oak, ash, maple, cedar, beech, and spruce, a small part of the Carolinian ecozone that enveloped the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.

The project began on May 26, 2000, when 125 staff and students planted 18 nut-bearing trees and a 300-foot cedar hedge along the western edge of the school property.

The outdoors is a vast classroom indeed, providing a wealth of teachable moments for interested educators. The Ontario Society for Environmental Education (OSEE), for example, has developed a 'dichotomous learning key' - a simple either-or guide to visually identifying trees in terms of leaf type, twig shape, and branching pattern.

With this key, and a basic introduction to Linnaeus' system of Genus and species, students can begin to explore the ecology.

A Nutty Arboretum (2000)

Canada Trust's Friends of the Environment Grant

Apart from their use to a future environmental studies class, many of the species selected have long intertwined with human history. The oaks, of which we have six species, are well known for the folkloric connection with magic and longevity; the old saying that an oak has 100 years to grow, 100 to live, and 100 to die overshadows our mere threescore and ten. Hickories, belonging to the Juglandaceae family, are well represented too. There is also a pecan (Carya illinoensis), a shellbark (C. laciniosa) and two shagbarks (C. ovata), all interesting for their rough bark, vibrant green leaves, and the nuts prized for their smoky flavour. Yorkdale's beeches (Fagaceae) include the burgundy European beech (Fagus sylvatica) and perhaps our most prized specimen, the endangered American Sweet Chestnut (Castanea dentata).

From this preserve, we are happy to help re-introduce this genetic treasure to its former habitat in southern Ontario and the five seedlings appear to be adapting well to their environment, though the future is uncertain. Other deadly invaders, which are now an unfortunate part of the local ecology, also beset the Toronto area.

Castanea dentata

The American Sweet Chestnut at left is our one true experimental species, a life form all but eradicated by a blight (Endothia parasitica) first identified in the New York area in 1904. It thus joins a growing list of arboreal species under threat, along with the butternut, the elm, and the ash. However, the inadvertent introduction of this fungus 100 years ago is being remediated and the species may be undergoing a slow recovery.

In the spring of 2002, a Toronto newspaper reported that an isolated stand of the American chestnut had been discovered at the Grand River Conservation Authority in southwestern Ontario. After careful surveillance and propagation, robust seedlings that had somehow escaped the disease were put up for sale and a committee member brought back and distributed a dozen specimens.

Researchers from Guelph University were actually the first ones to discover fungus and roots in cahoots: the fungus first paralyzes the otherwise innocuous springtail insect, consumes it, and then transmits the nutrients to the tree roots. The pine, in turn, delivers its sap to the fungus and a natural cycle completes: the tree gets the nitrogen, the fungus its sugars, and the springtail a purpose in life. About seven of these specimens are currently hard at work in Yorkdale's growing arboretum.

The White Pine (Pinus strobus)

Another garden specimen is the White Pine, everywhere to be seen in southern Ontario, the emblem of the province. This apparently unassuming member of the arboreal community, however, has been recently unmasked as among the wiliest species on the forest floor. Notwithstanding the graceful and towering altitudes of a mature specimen, the story underground is decidedly more dire. The Globe and Mail reported recently that strobus is in fact a sly, sub-surface predator, teaming up with a common fungus (Laccaria bicolor) which finds the roots of strobus particularly succulent.

The Black Walnut (Juglans nigra)

Just as with us humans, there is always one tree that prefers its own company. Among the forest community the standoffish individual in question is the Juglans nigra, long known as a source of edible nuts and tannin dye. Like its neighbour mentioned above, the Black Walnut is an equally cunning competitor on the forest floor: its root system secretes the juglone toxin, a chemical compound which effectively kills off encroaching surface flora. This not only gives the tree an expansive area in which to grow, but also provides an interesting profile for botanists to study. Most importantly, at least from the tree's perspective, the neighbours never get too close. We currently have one in the western field. All by itself.

Staff from Student Services confessed to a bit of weeding over lunch hour, and Site Services has provided all the free mulch necessary to overlay the arterial cement. Later in the fall, some spruce trees, which had apparently been lying around at home, were donated by the kitchen chef. Friday's weeds were gone by Monday morning.

One more item was necessary to make the day complete. Sung to the tune made famous by Woody Guthrie years ago, our This Land Is Your Land is a musical salute to the hard work and eventually to the vibrant results that we hope to see here one day: the nuts will bring the squirrels and chipmunks, the berries the birds, and the shade, the rest of us.

A Butterfly Garden (2000)

After the planting of the nut trees in the western field, Yorkdale's first ever butterfly garden was installed the following week. Once again supported by the same grant from the Friends of the Environment Foundation we put in sitting rocks, wild grasses, flowers, cedars, spruce, pine, bushes, and shrubs in the course of a morning.

When a good thing gets going, however, all sorts of unforeseen dividends accrue. And so it has been interesting to note the covert development of a project that has come to attract more than butterflies and bumblebees. Once the official planting had finished, we noticed how other plants surreptitiously appeared: a glass receptacle to catch rainwater for the butterflies, an all-they-can-eat birdfeeder on the school smokestack, and some climbing ivies inching ever so slowly toward it.

The Butterfly Garden: I

The Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), the white cedar (Thuja occidentalis), and the Blue Spruce (Picea pungens) were planted in order to pull the eye away from the ever-present school dumpsters and toward the far more interesting brick and vine geometries that can be observed in the late afternoon sun.

The food source now attached to the smokestack attracts a variety of bird species each winter and a small colony of yellow-jackets has moved in behind; the many flat surfaces around schools are ideal locations for bird-feeders.

Although the red butterfly plantings mysteriously turned purple - we learned about pH balance halfway through - the butterfly bushes (Budleia davidii) nonetheless get star billing: the Monarch butterfly finds the nectar of this species irresistible. Worrisome, however, is the decreasing numbers of the Monarch that we have observed in the last few years; destruction of their Mexican wintering habitat is likely one cause.

Yorkdale's Green Committee has benefited significantly from the support that we have received not only from Canada Trust and the Evergreen Foundation, but also from community leaders, other sponsors, and student organizations. Helping us turn the sod for the butterfly garden were Mike Colle, the M.P.P for Eglinton-Willowdale, Sue Nielsen, the Chair of the Toronto Adult Students' Association, and our former principal, Meredith MacFarquhar.

The Butterfly Garden: II

Teachers at Yorkdale Secondary School (2004-2005)

A Living Fence (2004)

The Living Fence Participants (May 26, 2004)

Once again, over an extended lunch-hour, staff and students hauled the mulch, watered the seedlings, and poked in the vines. More conifers were chosen this time in order to provide windbreak throughout the winter. As stipulated by the Evergreen Foundation, all recent plantings have been native, ranging from tamarack (Laryx laricinia), to yellow birch (Betula alleganiensis), and balsam fir (Abies balsamea).

The Living Fence Initiative (Spring 2004)

Four years later, this time with the financial backing of the Evergreen Learning Grounds Foundation, and in conjunction with Toyota Canada, the committee proceeded to naturalize the eastern perimeter of the school property, an area typical of many schoolgrounds: a chain-link fence demarcating a property line along which the detritus of urban life accumulated. Establishing the ivies, creepers, and trees along the property line affords additional winter shelter for the butterfly garden.

Looking To The Future

With much appreciated financial assistance from community sponsors, ongoing support from staff, and the invaluable help of our students, Yorkdale's naturalization projects have represented both the green and academic goals of successive school communities. Beginnings such as these instil confidence that environmental awareness can find its own niche alongside the many criss-crossing academic and technological trajectories of a modern school.

We hope that the students of 2006-2007 will find the time to harvest the nuts and perhaps even to propagate another generation in Yorkdale's greenhouse.

If you should come to visit, be sure to observe the territorial patterns at the bird-feeder, watch the vectors of honey bees, and listen for the buzz of yellow-jackets.

Green Committees

Former Green Committee (1999–2006)

Work in Progress (2026)