Start of the School Year

Here are some of the things going on at St. Rita Catholic School with our Eco-Squad:

It has been six weeks that have gone by. We have the book exchange and have lots of new helpers that have joined the Eco-Squad.

We are still thinking of more great ideas for our school and out Eco-Squad.

Some of these ideas that we are thinking about are:

• take old clothes and turn them into new things. Have a Fashion Show and present to the school
• have a contest to turn the garbage can upside down and see how long a class can keep it empty
• connecting with other Eco-Squads on-line to try and come up with great ideas in schools
• having an Earth Hour every week

These are some of the ideas that we have for the year.

Why do we do this stuff:

• we want to help the planet
• we want to keep our school nice, clean and safe
• we get to work with our friends
• we are kelping the school

If you want to connect with us, let us know so we can work together and brainstorm.

Below are some pictures of things our Eco-Squad is doing this year.

The Book Exchange

The Recycling Cart

One of Our Compost Bins

Some of the Trees We have Planted

By: Jaha and Noah

Pictures by: Dustin

Milk Bag Club

Our school has another green initiative coming!! We are asking everybody to bring in milk bags for our new Milk Bag Club. Two students who were interested in making a difference and being green started to collect milk bags to make into mats for people in third world countries. We will be having meetings weekly to twice a week starting after Education Week. We are encouraging students to bring in the big, coloured bags that hold all the small milk bags. We’ll make a difference while being green. So remember to bring in your milk bags to make a difference!!!!


We are taking this:

And turning it into this:

Update on our Book Exchange

Our Book Exchange Corner


Well our book exchange is up and running in celebration of Earth Week. We have had some people come by and donate some books so we are very excited to get some books into the hands of St. Rita students and to build our library.


We think this is a great idea to help the environment and we are looking for ideas for things to do next.


Here is what it looks like right now!

Earth Week Initiative: Eco-Squad Book Exchange

St. Rita Student Book Exchange

As part of Earth Week the St. Rita Eco-Squad is initiating a book exchange. 

Ever look around your room and see books that you have already read or ones that you do not pick up any more?

Why not bring in some of your books to St. Rita and put them in the book exchange. You can even pick a new one out for yourself to read!

How it works: students are asked to bring in books they are finished reading and no longer want. They are then asked to put the books on the shelf outside the library and take another book to read. When done with that book they can exchange it for another. This will continue all year. We hope to raise awareness of reusing and recycling by sharing books throughout the school. 

Please bring in gently used books or no longer needed books during the week of April 16th.

Ban the Bottle Ban the Box Update

Water Bottle Update


Our Eco-Squad has been hard at work these days.

BAN THE BOTTLE AND BAN THE BOX  has been very successful. We started out with buying 150 stainless steel water bottles and we wanted to get them into the classrooms. By doing this we were hoping that students would stop bringing in disposable drink containers.

We were a little worried that we would not sell all of the water bottles but we did. There were some disappointed students so we placed another order of 120 water bottles.

Know what ........ it is working. We competed a waste audit before we sold the water bottles and then did another one after the water bottles were in circulation. We went from 4 bags of recycling a day to 2. We could hardly believe it!

To date we have sold 177 water bottles with more being sold each day. We are very excited that we have done something and that we can see the results right away.

St. Rita Stingers Water Bottles

The Eco-Squad is Selling Water Bottles


What: Stainless Steel Water Bottles
What: Water bottles $6.00
When: After the March Break during recess
Where: In the Library
Why: Save the environment by not using single use water bottles and juice containers.

Things We Are Doing at St. Rita

These are some of the things we are doing at St.Rita:

The GOOS Project

The G.O.O.S stands for Good On One Side. These bins will be in every classroom to use as scrap paper or graphic organizers. We are doing this because we would like to reduce paper that still has a blank side on it in our recycle bins. We hope that the students will use these bins.

We write blurbs for the newsletter.

We do skits at the assembly.

We had Sweater Day and are having Reusable Water Bottle Day.

We make bin liners for the classroom compost bins.

We will participate in Earth Hour and hopefully have one once a week.

If anyone's reading this, share some ideas on how you help the environment at your school.