April 15th, 2013 – YMCA at the Green Living Show

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom, Environmental Stewardship, Events

The YMCA featured at the Green Living show

For the second year in a row, the YMCA of Greater Toronto is showcasing its work in health, wellness, and the environment at the Green Living Show.  From April 12-14th at the Direct Energy Centre, visitors will be able to learn all about the different projects the YMCA is up to in the area of environmental sustainability.  Not only will the Y have its own exhibitor booth, we will also be engaging visitors in hands-on presentations and workshops for adults and kids.  

The Green Living Show is North America’s largest eco-consumerism trade show and welcomes over 30,000 visitors every year.  It features a broad range of exhibitors from grassroots artisans selling fair trade products, to auto companies offering test drives in their electric vehicles.  The YMCA of Greater Toronto is proud to be part of the successful Green Living Show again.  We hope to see you there.

 

YMCA programmed events at this year’s Green Living Show

On the Sweat Equity Yoga and Fitness Pavilion, join YMCA instructor Abdou in a 30 min. Hatha Yoga demonstration on Saturday April 13 at 10:30am.  On Sunday, April 14 at 12:30pm, YMCA instructor Julieta will be leading a Zumba Class. 

On Sunday, April 14 in the Health and Wellness Pavilion, the YMCA will be doing another Hatha Yoga demonstration from 11:45am – 12:45pm. 

The YMCA will also have a presence in the Kids Zone with presentations on Amazing Animals with the Cedar Glen Outdoor Centre, Camp Fun with Camp Pinecrest, and Camp Fire Songs and Animal Parts.

 

The YMCA Academy’s Green Initiatives!

As a school run by the YMCA, The Academy will showcase its Green initiatives at the YMCA booth. Here’s a small taste of Green programming offered at The Academy alternative high school.

 

Community work

 

Whole – school projects

 

Evergreen Partnership:

 

Last year’s Green Living Show Trip: https://www.ymcaacademy.org/?p=2558

Jan 29th, 2013 – The Cycle of Giving Continues …

YMCA Academy English and Humanities, Environmental Stewardship, Experiential Learning, Student Spotlight

In September 2012, the Grade 12 Environment and Resource class helped to co-ordinate the Academy’s school-wide participation in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. As a result of our participation in that event, the Academy received $50 that could be donated to any registered Canadian charity.

The decision as to where that money would be donated was turned into a class research project of Canadian environmental non-governmental organizations (NGO’s). Research included not only an organization’s goals, activities, and success stories, but also required students to look at an NGO’s budget – including revenue, expenses and administrative costs.

After the presentations, the winner was chosen by class vote…Earth Rangers, an organization that focuses on educating children about the environment, was chosen as the donation recipient. But the giving still continued…thanks to others in our class who were inspired by a presentation on the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), that organization also received over $100 from independent donations from our class!

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Jan 23rd, 2013 – Sprout Harvest and Tasting

YMCA Academy Community, Environmental Stewardship, Experiential Learning

The Academy had a chance to enjoy our first in-school harvest of sprouts from our Pickle Farm prototype design. The Grade 10 Learning Strategies class picked freshly sprouted pea shoots and sunflower seed sprouts in order to create a delicious appetizer consisting of fresh bakery bread, sprouts (of course!), fresh tomatoes and Boursin cheese. The class used this activity as part of their lesson on identifying and describing personal lifestyle strategies that enhance health and wellness and improve one’s readiness to learn – in this case – making nutritious food choices!

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

Jan 22nd, 2013 – Pickle Farm Project Blog

YMCA Academy Community, Environmental Stewardship, Experiential Learning

Natural Development

A group of collaborators from The YMCA Academy, The YMCA, Greenwood College and community artists are developing a living sculpture capable of growing pickles.  The partnership led by artist Micah Donovan with generous support from the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto YMCA, The YMCA Academy and Greenwood College brought the makers and innovators together to create a unique form of sculpture that grows in a solarium attached to The YMCA’s Family Development centre’s childcare space.  This living sculpture will yield experimental indoor versions of chard, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, herbs and other plants capable of transforming into pickles, chutneys, and preserves.  The sculpture investigates complexity in organic approaches to developing public spaces and parallels therein to cultures fermenting popular foods, engaging notions of authorship, art and productivity.

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Partners Redistribute Expertise

Rebekka Hutton of Alchemy Pickles introduced the participants from the YMCA to lactic fermentation while Leslie McBeth’s Green Industries class from Greenwood College shared their indoor farming design experience with YMCA Academy students.  Katie Mathieu inaugurated the solarium Pickle Guild with a sub-irrigated planter workshop, Micah introduced clay, steel cold-forming, and ferrocement techniques over the several weeks. Students, volunteers, teachers, and staff from both Greenwood College and The YMCA Academy worked together on all stages.

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The last development phase employed a remote creativity exercise where collaborators divided into four colour groups across both sites, four at Greenwood College and four at The YMCA Academy, and each group tried to anticipate what other was thinking.  The disembodied design exercise revealed deep trends that overlapped between the colour teams on each site and highlighted sculpture designs to narrow down the end result.

As the sculpture emerges from a synthesis of student and adult designs, the experiments grow and continue to develop, eventually accumulating in the form of living sculptures, plants, then pickles.  Cross cultural, natural, healthy, safe, and exciting, naturally fermented pickles address challenges of food preservation, diversity, regionalism, distribution, and ultimately creativity.  Working with the natural cycles and processes of fermentation restores a trust in the environment popular culture has only recently led us to fear, reconnecting us with our thousands of years invested in the pickle project.

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Visit the Pickle Farm Website

*all photographs Micah Donovan 2012

Nov 22nd, 2012 – Cedar, Pine and Sumac Tea

YMCA Academy Community, Environmental Stewardship, Experiential Learning

Outdoor Skills: Reconnecting with Nature and Learning

On Wednesday November 21st, The YMCA Academy participated in a nature scavenger hunt at Evergreen Brickworks. After a discussion on how to sustainably harvest plant life, students broke off into small groups and headed into the wild to collect samples of Cedar, Pine and Sumac trees. The groups had 30 minutes to collect samples from each category and return to home base, where they were warmly welcomed back with ready to drink Cedar, Pine and Sumac hot tea. After a small wrap-up session and some interesting and informative facts, the group headed back to The Academy to discuss all they had learned about the outdoors.

Did you know Cedar Tea can stave off scurvy?!

Thank you Evergreen Brickworks!

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