Peel Environmental Youth Alliance

Conference Speaker

David Suzuki

David Suzuki, Co-Founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, is an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. He is renowned for his radio and television programs that explain the complexities of the natural sciences in a compelling, easily understood way

Dr. Suzuki has received consistently high acclaim for his thirty years of award-winning work in broadcasting. In 1974 he developed and hosted the long running popular science program Quirks and Quarks on CBC Radio for four years. He has since presented two influential documentary CBC radio series on the environment, It's a Matter of Survival and From Naked Ape to Superspecies. His national television career began with CBC in 1971 when he wrote and hosted Suzuki on Science. He was host of Science Magazine (1974 ? 79) then created and hosted a number of television specials, and in 1979 became the host of the award-winning series, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki. He has won four Gemini Awards as best host of different Canadian television series. His eight part television series, A Planet for the Taking, won an award from the United Nations. His eight part BBC/PBS series, The Secret of Life, was praised internationally, as was his five part series The Brain for the Discovery Channel. On June 10, 2002 he received the John Drainie Award for broadcasting excellence.

Teacher Workshop (only offered in the morning session)

Solar Oven!
With Ellen Murray, Ontario Society for Environmental Education
In a one hour workshop, teams will make a solar oven out of cardboard, aluminum foil, newspaper and an oven cooking bag. This activity is based on updated plans from Pembina Institute's Green Learning www.re-energy.ca website. Complete instructions will be shared. Teachers could use this activity in the Grade 11 Environmental Science courses, or as a supplemental activity for the Gr 9 Sustainable Ecosystems or Electricity unit, or perhaps as an alternative energy source when discussing climate change. If it is sunny, participants will even get to cook their own food!

Student Workshops:

Kill Your Bill! - Energy Conservation In Your School
With PEYA Executives, Peel Environmental Youth Alliance
Energy consumption is largely recognized as the most harmful contributor to climate change. As such, this year, PEYA wants to help you help your school's energy consumption through our "Kill Your Bill" program! Participants will learn about the importance of energy conservation, critically analyze their owns schools' energy consumption, and participate in other interactive activities. Interested students and teachers can sign up for PEYA's Kill Your Bill program afterwards to work on energy conservation initiatives with PEYA's support for the rest of the year!

Fresh Eating: Your Power to Choose Local!
With Stephanie Crocker, EcoSource
Local food is fresher, healthier and tastier. Supporting local food strengthens local economies and often reduces your environmental impact, yet it doesn?t always make it to your mouth. We?ll map out some of the ways you can easily access local food, and follow food as it travels from the farm through the distribution system to your school cafeteria. Each participant will leave with food you?ll sprout yourself!

Faced with Waste: How to Conduct a Waste Audit at Your School
With Jessica Kukac and Sierra Frank, EcoSource
Have you ever been frustrated by classmates and teachers who throw their waste in the wrong bin? Have you ever questioned if coffee cups can be recycled or wondered about innovative ways to reduce the amount of garbage that your school produces on a daily basis? This hands-on workshop will help you answer these questions and teach you how to conduct a waste audit at your school! You will have the opportunity to sort, weigh, and record the results of the waste audit as well as brainstorm ways to display the results with students from other schools and create action plans that will help to reduce and divert waste. Come and get a sneak preview of the new EcoSource WasteWatchers facilitated waste audit program, and find out how to get involved!

A Perfect Circle (Only offered in 2nd and 3rd workshop sessions)
With Sherri Owen, Ontario Society for Environmental Education
Students will examine the materials flow in product manufacture, use and disposal through active games. These experiences will be used to prompt discussion about waste and how it can be reduced. As a concluding activity, students will take two non-recyclable materials (plastic strapping and cd's) and make them into a fun toy.

In the Outdoors:Sketch, Paint and Shoot
With Gary Mascola, Samantha Fischer and Johanna Perz, Tutored By Nature Inc
Connecting to local Nature is the required prerequisite to seeing our Ecological Footprint - a view that allows possibility for taking successful action that's part of an ecological solution to local environmental problems. Join Tutored by Nature's ?Sketch, Paint & Shoot' outdoor art workshop, on the riparian of Credit River's Churchville Tributary - out back of David Suzuki S.S. Take a close look and communicate through creative expression - artistically, your sense of the beauty and ugliness of this urban development within this urban wilderness. Bring a camera, be dressed for the weather, and be prepared to try your hand at pencil and water colour sketching, to have fun and to make a difference.

An Exploration into the Credit River
With Cameron Parrack, Credit Valley Conservation
Participants will enter into the world of the fisheries biologist and their work on the Credit River. You will have the chance to work alongside one of them in a mock field exercise that will help to develop an understanding one way that ?we know what we know? about the local environment, the bad stuff and good stuff too. We have serious challenges but there is plenty of good to talk about when it comes to the Credit River!You will learn about local species; native, non-native, and species at risk all found locally in our watershed. Additionally, you will see how this information is used and what it can tell us about water quality, habitat availability, and how certain changes over time can affect these things. This is an interactive activity; please bring your enthusiasm, keen interest in local ecology, and sense your of adventure!

Energy Shift
With Kirsten Vanstone, TREC Eduation
Explore our energy grid and the potential offered by renewable energy to help build a sustainable future. Learn how much energy Ontarians use and where this energy comes from. Use demonstration wind turbines and solar panels and test how they function under different conditions.

Making Your High School Sustainable
With Gabriela Rappell, Sierra Youth Coalition
What impacts does a school have on the environment, economy, and community? Want to know how we can make our schools more sustainable? Wondering what a sustainable school even looks like? We'll answer these questions and more through an interactive presentation and activities.The Sustainable High Schools Project helps students and teachers imagine, assess, and act to create a more sustainable school and community. If you're interested in making changes at your school, we'll offer up ideas and advice, and help guide you through the process!

EcoMentors: Youth. Environment. Leadership.
With Josh Stevenson and Lauren Crickmore, Earth Day Canada
Youth play an important role in environmental education. Earth Day Canada?s EcoMentors program provides the opportunity, training and resources for youth across Canada to be active leaders in raising awareness and encouraging positive actions in support of a healthier environment. Through interactive activities and group discussions, this session will give you an opportunity to discover your role as young environmental educator, and to explore how you can turn education into action by facilitating EcoMentors workshops with groups of other young people.

Quest for Clean Shorelines
With Fiona Street, Learning for a Sustainable Future
Would you like to be part of a national initiative to clean up all the litter around a nearby river, lake, or stream so that you can help protect wildlife and enjoy the local watershed? You will investigate the reasons why so much litter is present in our waterways and pinpoint the most problematic litter sources in your community. You will be challenged to plan an initiative in your community to dispose of waste properly and to act to diminish a particular source of litter so that there will be less and less of it each year.

Get Engaged, Make a Difference: Protecting Our Species at Risk
With Sarah Hedges and Josh Wise, Ontario Nature
Participants will have the opportunity to become engaged in species at risk protection and learn why their protection is so important. We'll look at 'what we are doing', and 'where we can do more'. We will examine species protection from different perspectives to understand why this issue has been so heated in Ontario. The session will include an introduction to campaign work that will help enable participants to stay engaged in and help advocate for Ontario's species at risk beyond the workshop.

Careers and Education Opportunities in the Environment
With Jason Tran, University of Guelph
In this session, high school students will gain insight about career trends and educational opportunities in the environmental sector. Using the ?career wheel?, students will learn a variety of environmental occupations and match up the careers to the types of education typically required. Key statistics related to the environmental sector will be shared with students to communicate the demand for environmental professionals and growth in career opportunities across Canada.The workshop will also feature some co-op students from the University of Guelph?s environmental sciences program. Co-op students will share with high school students the types of placements they?ve had and skills they?ve gained from being on the job. We invite high school students interested and passionate about the environment to join us in this workshop.

For more information, please contact:
Darius Chia, Peel Environmental Youth Alliance Coordinator, EcoSource
905.274.6222 or info@peyalliance.com