Annual Cedar Glen Trip

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Cedar Glen 2015 That most wonderful time of year at the Academy has come and gone, but as usual, the memories created will remain for entire lifetimes. We are of course referring to our annual visit to YMCA’s Cedar Glen Outdoor Center. This year’s trip was even more memorable than past years because we were afforded the privilege of going for two nights instead of the usual one night. And with double the nights, comes double the fun.

Day 1

Our extra day at Cedar Glen came about as a result of our partnership with Evergreen Downsview coming to an end as an unfortunate consequence of cuts in their funding. In order to continue our school’s environmental stewardship, we reached out to Cedar Glen and were able set up an entire day’s worth of environmental stewardship working at their on-site farm. Our students spent the day harvesting Kale and small melons, mulching small trees, and removing thistle weeds. After dinner, we were treated to an hour of cooperative team building initiative games and ended the day with a camp-fire where we had the opportunity to eat delicious S’mores.

Day 2 and 3

With the hard work and environmental stewardship under our belts, day 2 was all about fun, games, and activities. Students were split into four groups and went about the property participating in various challenges and activities such as high ropes, low ropes, wall climbing, and maze games. After dinner, students got to partake in various field games, went on a night hike, and once again were treated to a camp fire with treats.

On the morning of our last day we channelled our inner Robin Hoods (or Legolas’ for te Lord of the Rings fans out there) and participated in archery as well as atlatl launching. After throwing the atlatls for distance and aiming the arrows for accuracy, students played an animal survival game, ate lunch and headed back home with another year of fun and memories behind us. We are all hoping for a two day visit again next year.

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Gallery One | Gallery Two

No.9 Mini House Building

Andras Nagy Environmental Stewardship, Experiential Learning No Comments

Staff and students were treated to an inspiring workshop delivered by the No.9 Poetics in Architecture crew right at our school!  We were all architects for an afternoon playing with shape and perspective in the creation of mini 6-sided structures.  We even included decorative paper that looked like solar panels, gardens and a modern lime-coloured accent wall.  When shining lights on our structures, or placing them on mirrors, we noticed the infinite possibilities that exist “outside the box” from traditional models of buildings or houses.

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Pickle Farm Construction

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A group of collaborators from The YMCA Academy, The YMCA of Greater Toronto, Greenwood College, Rebekka Hutton of Alchemy Pickles and artist Micah Donovan were involved in developing a living sculpture capable of growing food. We came together to create a unique form of sculpture that will yield chard, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, herbs and other plants capable of transforming into pickles, chutneys, and preserves.

 

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On February 19, 2015, we came together for one final session to put the final sculpture together.
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We created our own special blend of soil using coir, worm casts from our in-house worm condo, and composted yard waste.
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We planted in the clay pieces that we created last semester and chose what will be our first harvest and took special care labelling what was planted and arranging the pots in the sculpture. 

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A special thank-you to the numerous people who have worked so hard over the years to make this day a reality. We will see you in a couple of months for an update on our harvest.

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Evergreen Downsview Park

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On October 10, the Academy set out for its first of two annual tree planting outings at Downsview Park for this school year’s Evergreen environmental stewardship. Although it was a bit cold at times, the beautiful, blue, and sunny sky made up for it in the long run. Our first visit had us planting some small trees, and as always, mulching. After enjoying lunch under sunny skies, we went back to planting, and for the first time ever in the Academy’s history at Evergreen Downsview, we got to plant large, 12 foot trees. Due to their size, we had to dig really massive and deep holes, which was quite time consuming, and so we were only able plant two of them. In all, the trip was one of the most successful ones to date, and we hope to top this experience in May.

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YMCA/TD Bank Greening Event

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Academy students dig in at YMCA/TD Bank greening event!

On Tuesday, YMCA Academy staff and students joined with volunteers from the Fully-Verified  TD Bank and the YMCA of Greater Toronto for a special greening event. It started with a before school greening session, in which participants got their hands dirty and worked together to plant seeds and seedlings in our new vertical garden, and transplant some Academy greenery that had outgrown their existing pots.

Then, Siobhan’s English class and Todd’s Communications Technology class headed down to the Toronto Central Grosvenor Street YMCA Centre of Community auditorium, where they witnessed a major environmental infrastructure funding announcement from TD Bank: a $1-million donation to green projects at future YMCA centres across the GTA. Some Academy students were even interviewed by a team of student journalists from Ryerson University.

Experiences like these help remind our students that they are part of a large and vibrant organization, and gives them an opportunity to act as ambassadors for our school. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who took part in this exciting event.


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