Today is Earth Day and the DLC would like to take this opportunity to celebrate with our resident environmentalist, Paul Stinson, one of our middle-years teachers. He has been a key leader in the DLC’s Environment Committee which introduced vericomposting to the DLC, performed a building waste audit, and helped us learn to reduce the waste produced.

No matter what school Mr. Stinson taught at over his career, it didn’t take long until someone brought him an injured or unusual animal.

Whether a student, janitor, parent or fellow teacher, it was understood that if you had a living thing in a box or coffee can, Mr. Stinson would know what to do with it, or tell them what it was.

“Probably bats have been the most common. Snakes, salamanders, different types of insects; especially if particularly large. Some became temporary classroom pets. In my first year at the DLC, I remember getting a text from a colleague one morning that there was an injured owl in her backyard. Somehow we got it into a cat carrier, and it was taken to the vet college in Saskatoon,” Paul related.

Years ago, Paul was given a yoghurt container of worms – red wrigglers – to start a vermicomposting system. These worms and their progeny multiplied, were split into new colonies, and have diverted food waste that would have gone to landfills all over Saskatchewan. And can be found at the DLC in their very own “Worm School”.

“Worm School teaches that ‘from awareness and understanding comes positive action’. We can all do better when it comes to a healthy environment and a just society.”

Paul Stinson lives on a solar-powered acreage/farm/cherry orchard/prairie/agriforest between Saskatoon and Regina, where he celebrates Earth Day every day.

Thank you Mr. Stinson for helping all of us at the DLC learn to be more sustainable.