A busy spring with ReNEW!
by Lesley Magee, ReNEW Coordinator – April 2019
As we enter the last phase of the ReNEW project this spring, our Hands On! Environmental Education programming is coming into full swing, we’re full on with Wax Wrap Workshop offerings and we’re in the midst of planning a Canada Day solar concert and extravaganza!
Our last newsletter marked the launch of our new environmental education program, Hands On! Environmental Education, and things have just been rolling from there. Over March break we offered Hands On! programming to a group of newcomer families from the YMCA Newcomer Centre in Halifax. Sixty people of all ages and from diverse backgrounds joined us for a day of learning, good food and fun. We also made a trek to the Musquodoboit Valley Family Resource Centre to offer two sessions of Power Play, our renewable energy workshop for youth from seven to twelve. Continuing our March Break road trip, the last day of March Break saw us partnered with the Musquodoboit Harbour Girl Guides and the Old School Community Gathering Place for more fun with wind power!
On April 24-25, we’re thrilled to be hosting a group of Exploring Technology 10 students from West Hants Education Centre for an overnight filled with renewables-themed programming. Students will be getting their hands very dirty with a natural plastering project and hopefully some brush fence building, weather permitting. We’ll include an update on our blog after the event.
If you’re interested in learning more about our programming, visit our website or contact us for more info.
Part of the ReNEW mandate is to help folks find ways they can help reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, thereby helping mitigate climate change. To that end, we have developed a workshop to 
teach people how to make beeswax food wraps. Switching to these types of wraps helps reduce emissions in terms of the production of plastic and helps cut down on the amount of plastic entering into the environment. Our workshops have proven very popular, we’re looking forward to offering a second session at the Old School Community Gathering Place on April 27 (sorry – we’re sold out!) and another workshop in Sheet Harbour with Lea Place on June 5. If you’re interested in the Sheet Harbour session, contact us for info on how to register!
Stay tuned for more info on a really exciting initiative we’re working on with the Musquodoboit Valley Bicentennial Theatre, the Electric Vehicle Association of Atlantic Canada (EVAAC), and the NSCC Applied Energy Research Lab – a Canada Day Solar Concert! We’re still in the planning stages but we’ll have more details very soon! Also, keep your ears open for news on another renewables tour of the Eastern Shore. Last year’s tour was such a success that we’ve decided to travel further east this time. If you are living or working with renewables somewhere along the Eastern Shore, give us a shout if you’d like to get involved!
Finally, we’re already looking forward to the fall, when we’ll be hosting a natural building colloquium. Our vision for this is a chance for builders, dwellers, planners, designers and the likes to get together to look at building solutions that are easy on our planet.
