The advice to 'think globally, act locally' has inspired us here at Yorkdale to do our bit. Fortunate to have a functional greenhouse, we hope that with projects like these, staff and students will re-discover a bit of the budding environmental consciousness of the 60s and 70s which spurred school boards and government to construct large glass houses for no other purpose than to explore the interdependence of all living things.

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As Yorkdale Secondary School and Adult Learning Centre entered its third decade, staff and students reflected not only on our original mandate as a vocational school but also on the many changes that have taken place over the years. Since its founding in 1963, Yorkdale has served this north Toronto neighbourhood in several capacities, and is now fulfilling its role as a secondary school for both adolescents and adults. Classes that were once filled with students learning the environmental, culinary, wood, machine, and metal trades, now teach CISCO, Dreamweaver, ACCPAK, Cosmetology, Edvance, and CO-OP for foreign-trained professionals.

In addition to the ongoing interest in new technologies, however, green awareness of the blue planet is becoming increasingly urgent: a glance through the newspapers indicates little good news about our environment: ozone holes in the ionosphere, accelerated glacial melt, 'dead zones' in Lake Erie and in the Gulf of Mexico, fertilizer-induced algae blooms in Lake Winnipeg, obstructed Atlantic currents, residual mercury contamination at Grassy Narrows, and the harmful effects of sour gas flares on the memory capacity of honey bees.

Yorkdale Secondary
The Enviography of a North Toronto School