Embracing Eco Clubs

By Larraine Roulston This month school eco clubs emerge to continue promoting last year’s passionate cause, or embrace a new environmental project. Whether they call themselves an Eco Action Team, Green Club, or Eco Avengers, these students engage their school’s community with environmental projects. Educators can gather inspiration and ideas for projects from both Green Teacher and Canadian Teacher Magazine. Green Teacher is primarily an academic journal published quarterly. It features ready-to-use activities, webinars, and resources for youth. The magazine’s portal and archives are managed alongside the Outdoor Learning School & Store. Canadian Teacher Magazine is both independent and national and is published three times a year. Besides featuring environmental information and student projects, it covers a variety of current trends, classroom management, professional and personal development, book reviews, instructional strategies and methodology, and national/international issues. I find great joy Googling ‘Our Canada Projects’ when choosing a school to feature in Canadian Teacher Magazine. By clicking on schools across Canada, teachers will discover what student Eco Clubs are doing from coast to coast to coast. For over a decade, I’ve featured student driven enthusiasm for such issues as: creating nature gardens; recycling; using a 3D printer to transform PET bottles into useful items; studying harmful microplastics; reusing textiles; composting with red wigglers; building bike racks, greenhouses, and clotheslines; printing a book about light pollution; protecting the pollinators; creating signs to encourage parents to stop idling their vehicles; eliminating plastic water bottles; and cleaning up local waterways. For any environmental classroom project, there are many grants available. Learning Sustainable Foundation (LSF) is one resource where I asked Samantha Gawron, Chief Strategy & Operations Officer, several questions on how LSF works: Q: What year did LSF begin? A: We've been around since 1991. Q: How many schools have you funded so far? A: We fund approximately 225 schools every year. Q: Do you get many repeats for funding from the same school? A: We do! For example, last year about half of our applications were from schools that received funding the year before. Q: How does a school qualify? A: LSF provides funding for students and teachers to engage their school and community in climate Action Projects. This includes any action that is student-led and contributes to the sustainability of your school or community - the only limit is the students’ imaginations! We work with grade K-12 students in Canada and can only fund 1 project per school - first come, first served. Applications will open in fall 2026 at https://lsf-lst.ca/programs/action-project-funding/ (or in French at https://lsf-lst.ca/fr/programmes/financement-de-projets-daction/). Need some Action Project inspiration? Check out last year’s Empowering Youth for Climate Action Award winners! new link: https://ourcanadaproject.ca/winners-2026/ A student driven team, working on environmental solutions, provides a cross-curricular learning activity that often enthusiastically engages their entire community to help build a healthier future.