Grade 12 Sustainability Students Making the World a Better Place

Jessamyn Polson English and Humanities, Environmental Stewardship

 

Sustainability is all about living comfortably in our world while using resources responsibly so that future generations can do the same. Unfortunately, our world isn’t always a sustainable place—but our Grade 12 Living in a Sustainable World students tackled the challenge with creative workshops covering urban biodiversity, native species, and ways to protect local ecosystems.

Without further ado, let’s dig into the workshops!

Seekers

By J.P.

This workshop explored biodiversity in the city. “Biodiversity” might sound complex, but it simply refers to the wide variety of species that share an ecosystem—including urban spaces! To prove this, J.P. introduced students to the Seek app by iNaturalist, which helps users identify plants and animals using their phone cameras. Participants then headed to the park across the street with a scavenger hunt checklist, finding up to 10 different species—despite the winter weather!

Daybreak

By S.R.

S.R. introduced students to Daybreak, a unique, collaborative board game about sustainability. Unlike competitive games, this one challenged players to work together to meet the needs of their assigned countries while staying carbon-neutral. The workshop’s goals were to introduce students to sustainability-focused games and highlight both the obstacles and innovative solutions in creating a greener world.

City Safari

By F.A-L.

F.A-L. led a workshop on how species in the city are interconnected, focusing on the relationship between rats—a species subsidized by humans—and their predators, hawks. The inspiration? A red-tailed hawk that frequently perches on a tree across the street! Through an engaging presentation, F.A-L. demonstrated how every species plays a role in the urban ecosystem and emphasized the importance of respecting and protecting our shared environment.

Seed Dumplings

By M.R.

M.R. focused on biodiversity by teaching participants about Ontario wildflowers and how to make seed dumplings—small, biodegradable balls containing native plant seeds. These can be scattered in garden plots around the city to promote local plant growth. The workshop highlighted how even small, simple actions—like planting native species—can have a positive environmental impact.

Bruce’s Clothing Swap

By B.K.

B.K. tackled textile waste by organizing a school-wide clothing swap. Students brought in unwanted clothes and traded them for new-to-them items-for free! B.K. who is interested in fashion, shared with students how clothing waste contributes to landfills and environmental problems, and encouraged students to think about sustainable fashion choices. The event was such a success that students are already asking for it to become an annual tradition!

Gourmet Today and Tomorrow

By R. T., L. B., and J. I.

This workshop combined cooking skills, food insecurity awareness, and waste reduction. Students gathered in the Orange Room, where J.I. talked about how learning how to cook can help reduce food waste. Then participants split into groups to make pancakes. While pancakes cooked, R. led a discussion on food insecurity, a growing problem in Toronto, and talked about how cooking skills can help people eat more nutritiously and affordably. L. then explained how to properly recycle and dispose of food waste. The workshop highlighted both the social and environmental aspects of sustainability—all while making (and enjoying) a delicious snack!

City Chicks

By E.R. and M.T.

E.R. and M.T. led a hands-on workshop to help prevent bird-window collisions—a major cause of bird deaths in urban areas. Students made paper bird cutouts to stick on windows, a simple but effective way to alert birds and keep them from flying into glass. E.R. focused on the role birds play in urban ecosystems, while M.T. emphasized practical ways to protect them. The goal is to fill the windows with colorful bird silhouettes—a creative and impactful step toward making the city safer for wildlife.

Our World Today and Tomorrow was an assembly that was both fun and meaningful, offering students a chance to learn about sustainability through hands-on activities. 

On behalf of the entire Living in a Sustainable World class, thank you to everyone who participated and supported our workshops—it made all our planning and hard work worthwhile!

Sustainable Suggestions from the Grade 12s!

  • Pay attention to the plants and animals in the city. It’s cool, and it helps shift our mindset about what a city is. A city is an ecosystem!
  • Participate in citizen science! Using Seek by inaturalist is a cool way to contribute to an open database of information on plants and animals around you. Scientists use the data for their studies too so you are helping them out!
  • Plant native plants! Especially Milkweed, the Monarchs love Milkweed and Monarchs are very cool and weird.
  • Are you building things in the city, or renovating? Use bird-safe glass to protect our migratory birds!
  • Keep your eye out for our city’s population of Peregrine Falcons and Red Tailed Hawks because they are cool! But birder beware – you may see a pigeon disembowlment. 
  • Cooking cuts food waste, and it’s fun! 
  • Advocate for a national food insecurity policy. Food banks can’t keep up with the need right now and a lot of people are suffering.
  • Did you know we can’t recycle black plastic in the city? But did you know that now we can recycle reusable coffee cups and lids?! Use Waste Wizard to make sure you are recycling everything you can!
  • Play sustainable games like Daybreak, and Pandemic, and Rain World – they are fun and creative and hopeful!

Student Newscast – Politics in Action

Brandon Stewart Community, English and Humanities, Experiential Learning No Comments

Last semester, the students of the Grade 11 Politics in Action class at YMCA Academy took on a new role as journalists and news anchors. They headed a project in which they produce an audio Newscast every two weeks in an effort to inform and entertain their fellow students. Stories ranged from upcoming school events, to the weather, to interviews with members of the community.

From brainstorming the content, conducting research, drafting the scripts, recording the segments, and editing the audio files, the grade 11 Politics in Action class put in the work to bring upcoming events, sports, weather, and news to their peers.

One of the installments of Student Newscast included an interview with the then interim Head of School, Steve Saunders. Student Newsroom connected classes to the school, and the school to the world of political change around them.

The last installment of Student Newsroom included a feature piece on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and the school’s Orange Shirt Day assembly.

Viking Shield Games

Brandon Stewart English and Humanities, Experiential Learning No Comments

The Grade 12 Adventures in World History class engaged in some hands-on-experiential learning in the park near YMCA Academy. Students have been learning about the adventures of Norwegian, and Danish societies of the Viking Age roughly one thousand years ago. Students researched the lives of everyday Norwegians during the 10th Century, learning that their daily experiences were focused largely on farming, trading, and textile production. Students examined primary evidence to learn that Norse technological developments in ironworking, carpentry, and shipbuilding at the gradual warming of the climate made exploration of the North and Baltic Seas possible.

Students read selections from Egil’s Saga to gain some insight into how later Norwegians perceived their own heroic figures of the Viking Age. They learned about shield heraldry, and Norse symbology in order to design their own Viking Round Shields. Then it was time to test drive the strategies of Vikings on a raid. Students hoisted round shields to test the viability of individual combat as compared to formation tactics, and the benefits of speers over swords. Students employed their round shields, foam swords, and foam-tipped spears to play a variety of games including adaptations of tag, mock duels, and pushing matches that resembled a reverse tug of war. They quickly determined that coordinated formations and polearms provided much better chances of survival against warriors fighting as individuals.

The activities gave students a view into one aspect of the world of the Viking Age; raiding. But in class the students learned that the vicious stereotype of terrifying pillagers only highlights one aspect of Norse culture. Far more often the medieval people of Scandinavia were traders, poets, farmers, and craftspeople. The daily needs of Norse society placed much more focus on food production than on swinging axes at Saxon monks. The class still had a blast testing their combat skills during a day of Viking Shield Games.

Check out the rest the rest of the pictures on our Facebook page!

Student Vote

Arnold Chan English and Humanities, Experiential Learning No Comments

The two Civics classes in the Academy have joined together to work with Student Vote Canada to bring a realistic voting experience to the school.

Before the voting day, students first create informative videos about the municipal election, then create posters for candidates to investigate their stories and platforms. On the voting day, students take on different roles such as deputy returning officer, poll clerk and scrutineers to help guide other students through the voting process.
It has been an authentic and engaging learning experience for all of us!

Mapping the World

Brydie Smith English and Humanities No Comments

In unit two of our Issues in Canadian Geography class, we have been exploring the concepts of Mapping! This includes learning what a map is, who makes maps, map projections and distortions, the features of a map, and how to read the stories that maps tell!

As a warm up activity, the students tried their hand at cartography by drawing a map of the world from memory. Within seconds, all of their erasers were frantically in use–which is the point of the exercise. When we think of the world, we often start with the area(s) of the world that we know best or feel the most familiar with, typically North America. When it’s time to move on to other continents and countries, we realize that we overestimated the size of North America then have to redraw it to make it smaller and smaller…and smaller. The fact that all maps (not just the ones we draw) are drawn from someone’s perspective s an interesting concept to discover with the students, and from there we can further explore how we view the world outside of our community.

See the above photos for our interpretations of the world!