The Toyota Earth Day Scholarship Program is awarding twenty $5 000 scholarships to graduating Canadian high school and CEGEP students entering their first year of post-secondary studies—regardless of their chosen field of study. Students must apply by January 31st, 2011 at http://www.earthday.ca/scholarship/.

The Home Depot Canada Foundation and Evergreen are pleased to offer the Rebuilding Nature Grant Program to support environmental stewardship projects in communities across Canada.

The Rebuilding Nature Grant Program will provide community groups with grants of $1,000, $3,000 or $12,000 – plus $2,000 in The Home Depot gift cards – to cover the costs of tools and equipment, native plants and trees, and other expenses.

The Rebuilding Nature Grant Program is available to Canadian community groups whose project site is located in a community where The Home Depot has a retail presence. Applications must be received in our office by February 11, 2011. Please see the Application Guide for more details.

Download the Application and Guide.

NLEE* is pleased to be partnering with the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers Association and the Canadian Teachers Federation to present a free webinar on the ImagineAction program.  The webinar will take place next Wednesday, January 19th at 3:30pm.

ImagineAction is a unique new program that seeks to bring together students, teachers and community experts to create action projects around issues of sustainability in our communities through a creative granting program.

While teachers apply for the funding for projects in their school, they work with community partners to implement their projects. Community groups can participate in the ImagineAction program by registering their interest on the website as an “expert” and by engaging with schools in their community to implement projects.  This one hour webinar, for teachers and educators in the broader community, will introduce the foundations behind the ImagineAction program and its themes and give a local context to how we can implement it here.  Please follow the link for more information or to register:  https://www.nlta.nl.ca/imagineaction_webinar

 *NLEE: Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Educators

Join CSC for two new learning sessions on innovation

 Free Webinars and Teleconference Sessions

» What makes an organization innovative? Is yours?
» Looking for new ways of working and generating ideas?
» Wondering how to encourage staff and volunteers to be more creative?
» Interested in hearing about local success?

Join CSC (from the comfort of your home or office!) for two new learning sessions that will get your creative juices flowing and help you plant the seeds of innovation in your community organization.

Join CSC for two new learning sessions on innovation

Free Webinars and Teleconference Sessions

» What makes an organization innovative? Is yours?
» Looking for new ways of working and generating ideas?
» Wondering how to encourage staff and volunteers to be more creative?
» Interested in hearing about local success?

Join CSC (from the comfort of your home or office!) for two new learning sessions that will get your creative juices flowing and help you plant the seeds of innovation in your community organization.  Download the flyer…

Part 1
Innovation in Practice
Hear more local success stories and get practical tips on how to encourage your staff, board and volunteers to generate new ideas and be more innovative. Online resources will help you begin fostering an innovative culture in your own organization!

The Facilitator for this session is Bettina Ford and guest speakers include Ken Kavanagh from the Community Centre Alliance and Ruth MacDonald from CSC.

When?

January 26, 2011 Webinar from 1 to 2 pm NST (Newfoundland Standard Time)
high speed Internet, speakers and/or headset required

OR

January 27, 2011 Teleconference from 1 to 2 pm NST (Newfoundland Standard Time)

telephone access only

PART TWO: Creating a Culture of Innovation in Your Organisation

A Cosmetic Pesticide Ban for NL in 2011?

The Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (CAP-NL)

Nearly 80% of Canadians are covered by bans against using cosmetic pesticides, which can cause cancer, yet Newfoundland and Labrador remains silent on the issue.

Join other interested volunteers

All are welcome!

Contact: pesticidealternatives@gmail.com

 http://pesticidealternativesnl.wordpress.com

 Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides Newfoundland and Labrador,

 Twitter CAP_NL                                                                            

There will be an evening lecture hosted by the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society:

CMOS SPEAKER TOUR 2011 Climate Change and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions: Blending Science, Social Science, Politics and Opportunity

Featuring: Thomas F. Pedersen, Executive Director, Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, University of Victoria

Abstract: Global warming caused by human activities is happening, it is scientifically well understood and, as will be discussed in the lecture, it presents a serious challenge to human societies. But in that challenge lies an opportunity for us to do things better, to unleash a new era of creativity, to improve the stewardship of our natural environment, and to revitalize our economy while generating new, cleaner industrial activity.

Taking such action demands concerted political leadership and policy development informed by high-quality interdisciplinary research. The latter requirement led the Government of British Columbia to create in 2008 of thePacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), an endowed four-university consortium hosted and led by the University of Victoria that focuses on blending the social and physical sciences and engineering to provide best-practice policy pathways that the provincial government can follow.

The role PICS is now playing in contributing to British Columbias response to the climate-change challenge will be described and set within the larger NorthAmerican context. But there remains a problem: most climate solutions are not of provincial scale, and many span, if not the full globe, at least the scale of the nation or continents. Solutions case studies that span both the science-policy intersection and large spatial scales will be presented. For example, the directive to enhance corn-ethanol production in the U.S. has reinforced unwelcome, distal oceanographic impacts that might have been curbed had science and interdisciplinary discussion been used more effectively in the policy design. And in Canada, our provincially-controlled electrical grid system hampers our ability to accommodate renewable energy, thereby limiting the scope we have to reduce CO2 emissions. Europe is taking a collective, aggressive and different tack that will be contrasted to the current situation in Canada.

Finally, it is increasingly clear that Canada could take steps that would simultaneously allow us to reduce carbon emissions an imperative that climate science tells us is a must while yielding significant new economic value. Getting there will require recognition by the Canadian public (and its mirror our politicians) of both need and opportunity. Therein lies another challenge one which PICS is also addressing that is rooted in the communication of science, economic perceptions and economic reality, and human behavioural psychology.

ALL ARE WELCOME!

Fluvarium Kids Club Weekend Programs

Have you heard? Kids ages 5–10 and their families are invited to join Fluvarium Kids! Receive updates, collect stickers, and earn a Fluvarium Kids Fresh Water Friends certificate when you attend sessions in four different months!  This month: 

 “Life Goes On” at The Suncor Energy Fluvarium!

 Saturdays & Sundays at 1:30pm

January 8 – 30, 2011

Program runs approx. 45-60 minutes

 Most people think that natural environment has ‘gone to sleep’ at this time of year, but there are still lots of activity in and around the Fluvarium all winter long!  Help us discover which animals are still busy around this winter and maybe even learn ways to help them through this long cold season.

 This Fluvarium Kids program is Family Fun and includes

An outdoor component, game, story and craft!

 Fluvarium Kids programs are complimentary with admission.

Ask about our Annual Family Pass.

 For more information contact:

Denise Hennebury – 754-3474 – dhennebury@fluvarium.ca

Believe it or not – algae is cool! It’s everywhere, it grows like crazy, and it is bursting with oil!

The documentary, Algae: The Future Of Fuel, reveals how scientists at the National Research Council in Halifax are searching for the ultimate algae variety that can produce a large volume of oil in a short period of time using a minimum of nutrients. They are also exploring the potential to use sewage wastewater as a source of nutrients for the growing the algae. 

Algae: The Future Of Fuel will be airing this Sunday January 9th at 12 noon on CBC’s Land & Sea.  For those of you in other countries you can view the documentary after it airs on the CBC website at: www.cbc.ca/landandsea.

Most people probably don’t realize that the crude oil we pump from the ground was produced by algae. The only significant difference between the algae oil and crude oil is a few million years of aging.

What We Heard: Lawn Islands Archipelago Provisional Ecological Reserve Public Consultation Report is now available.  This document summarizes comments made throughout the consultation period for the proposed establishment of what would be called Lawn Bay Ecological Reserve. To request a copy of the report or submit questions or comments about the What We Heard Document or the process to achieve full ecological reserve status, please contact Erika Pittman at 709-635-4520 or erikapittman@gov.nl.ca.