EcoSchools » Success Stories

Rosebank Road Public School is a small community school located in south west Pickering.  For the second year in a row Rosebank has achieved Gold Eco School certification.  With the help of their Eco Committee and Student Eco Team their students and staff are involved in a number of energy and waste reduction programs as well as greening projects. 

Over the year their Eco Team meets on a regular basis to plan school wide events to help educate students on becoming more environmentally friendly.  They conduct energy and waste audits throughout the year and plan ways in which they can reduce their impact on the environment. 

On a daily basis students and staff keep lights and computers off when not in use.  Students boomerang their lunches so that all waste goes home in order for it to be recycled and composted at home, thus reducing the schools garbage.

Weekly the Eco Team organizes a school wide recycling program.  Each month they have an Eco Challenge for the classrooms as well as a powerless hour to help reduce energy consumption. 

Rosebank partnered with the City of Pickering and three times a year the entire school conducts a school yard and Rick Hull Park clean-up.  Rosebank has two gardens maintained by a team of parents and students from the Eco Team.  One garden is the shade garden used as an outside classroom.  The other garden is drought tolerant teaching garden which has won the school board’s  Looking Good This Summer garden contest. 

In 2009 they partnered with the Dunbarton High School Art Department who designed a mural for the front foyer. Grade eight students continue to add to the mural which welcomes visitors to the school.

This past spring Pickering high schools and elementary schools from both the separate school board and the public school board were invited to Rosebank to share their best practices.  The City of Pickering also attended sharing their contributions to help schools in the greening process.  Rosebank hopes to continue this mentoring project on an annual basis.

At the present time Rosebank is updating their website, which will list the many eco projects schools have been involved in to help students become better environmental citizens.