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.
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