West Ferris students are a class act

West Ferris teacher Cindy Deubelbeiss helps Grade 10 student Matthew McLeod log on to the Million Acts of Green website Wednesday.

Thanks to a Trojan effort the North Bay Million Acts of Green chapter surpassed its goal Wednesday. West Ferris Secondary students helped the local chapter reach 13,142 acts of green on Wednesday surpassing their original community goal of 10,000.

West Ferris teacher Cindy Deubelbeiss and her environmentally proactive students, logged on to the CBC website, joined the North Bay group and added their green activities to the local group’s total. She says there are so many reasons why the students should get involved

“As a school it’s a great initiative to take part in because we have just got our recycling program running so we are really working on greening our school and this is just one more step to get kids involved to see how they can make an impact by one or two things they do in their lives and how that snowballs,” she explains.

“So it’s a great opportunity.”

The Million Acts of Green website is a great teaching and awareness tool as it points to a number of environmentally positive things that people can do or may already be doing to reduce green house gases or be more environmentally supportive. Being part of a community and a national campaign brought out green ideas from around town and all across Canada.

“This particular class is a civics class so we talk about good citizenship they can do in regards to their responsibility in this case take care of the Earth and help others that sort of thing, so this is a very simple thing that anyone can do, so to introduce them to it and then they can go in on their own and they can monitor their ecological foot print,” says Deubelbeiss.

“When it comes to 1 Million Acts of Green they are a little bit unsure of the website and the acts of green that they do on a regular basics but once you read through the list that is posted on the one million acts of green they go Oh yeah we do that, Oh yeah I do that and they get to realise their overall impact ... particular on the 1 Million Acts of Green where it calculates the amount the reduction in the greenhouse gases they say wow okay, so they get that real feeling of accomplishment that they can make a difference.”

Recent activities recognized by the group around North Bay include Mexicali Rose's replacing plastic serving cups with pastry shells, a local car owner running his car on vegetable oil and Ellen Faulkner raising thousands of dollars for Habitat for Humanity through recycling.

“There is a cost reduction and there becomes more of an awareness and pride in one’s school as such because all students are monitoring each other to see what they can do to help with the overall reduction,” adds Deubelbeiss.

“So it becomes more of a helps with the school culture because everybody is on board it’s not just one class or something separate it becomes a school initiative.”