Earth Rangers
Earth Rangers is a Canadian kids' conservation organization, dedicated to educating children and families about biodiversity and empowering them to become directly involved in protecting animals and their habitats. Earth Rangers’ programs include a School Outreach and Classroom Visit Program, community shows, an award-winning website, a national television presence and Bring Back the Wild, an initiative that provides children with a tangible way to make a difference. These programs inspire hundreds of thousands of children across Canada every year to take action to help protect animals and their habitats.
Contents
Bring Back the Wild
Almost unanimously, children identify the crisis facing animals as their number one environmental concern and they are passionate about taking action to protect species and their habitats. In response to this, Earth Rangers developed Bring Back the Wild. The goal of this program is simple yet critical – to educate and inspire children about biodiversity loss in an engaging and interactive format and provide tools to help children protect animals at risk of extinction across Canada.
Each year, Bring Back the Wild focuses on four unique Canadian species that need help, as well as the Woodland Caribou as a special project during the holiday season. Four new projects are introduced in conjunction with each new school year. To participate, children log onto www.earthrangers.com where they learn about the different conservation projects and select the specific animal they would like to help protect through an online fundraising campaign. Since launching Bring Back the Wild in September 2010, over 200,000 children have participated.
Earth Rangers membership
By becoming a member of Earth Rangers, children, with support from their families, make a commitment to engage in actions that directly contribute to the protection of wildlife. Members will receive their own personalized membership card and welcome package. Their first mission[1] as an official Earth Ranger is to complete a Bring Back the Wild fundraising campaign to help save an animal. Once the campaign is complete, members will receive updates on BBtW projects and additional missions they can do at home that encourage environmentally responsible behaviours. Earth Rangers' aim is to remind children and their families that small actions, when made by many, can have a huge impact.[2]
School outreach
The School Outreach Program is Earth Rangers’ longest running program and features live animal ambassadors demonstrating their amazing, natural behaviours. The presentation communicates a positive, science-based message about the importance of protecting the environment and adopting more sustainable behaviours. The program visits 550 schools each year across Canada.[3]
To enhance what students have learned during the school assembly, Earth Rangers created a Classroom Visit Program,[4] that meets the environmental science curriculum requirements for students in grades 4 to 6. The program has been developed in collaboration with leading institutions including the Toronto Zoo, Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), and Vancouver Aquarium.
In the community
Earth Rangers attends a number of community events each year and has a permanent studio at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario where shows are hosted throughout the year including special presentations during the holiday period in December and March break. Earth Rangers also has a national television presence on YTV.
Online
EarthRangers.com is the largest online environmental community for kids in Canada and the ideal destination for kids interested in conservation and biodiversity. The website features over 25 environmentally themed games, videos about species in the wild and environmental news, interviews and fun facts about animals on the Wild Wire Blog.
Animal ambassadors
Earth Rangers believes in the power of animals to help inspire and engage children in environmental issues. Children have a natural connection with animals and Earth Rangers’ goal is to foster this connection through educational programs. Providing children with the opportunity to see wild animals up close inspires children to champion environmental issues either through their own actions or through a Bring Back the Wild fundraising campaign. Over 40 animals live at the Earth Rangers Centre and are incorporated into educational programming.[5]
Building
The Earth Rangers Centre (ERC) is an advanced green building, certified Platinum under LEED for Existing Buildings and Gold under New Construction. The ERC was designed to embody Earth Rangers’ values, to show that the organization practices what it preaches, and to serve as inspiration to everyone who walks through its doors.
The ERC is located in Woodbridge, Ontario, on the grounds of the Kortright Centre for Conservation. It is home to Earth Rangers’ staff and animal ambassadors, and is a showcase of leading edge sustainable building technology including energy metering, smart automation and controls, innovative water and wastewater management, solar generation, green roofs, and geothermal heating and cooling. The ERC is proof that a building can operate effectively and efficiently, while minimizing the impact on the environment.
Ventiliation
The Earth Rangers Centre was one of the first buildings in Canada to use displacement ventilation and has the largest installation of earth tubes in North America. This ventilation system circulates air through diffusers located near the floor level and displaces the existing air into return ducts near the ceiling.
Data Centre
The Earth Rangers’ 9.3 square metre (100 ft2) data centre was completed in December 2008. The data room uses storage servers from Pillar, Dell’s processing servers and virtual personal machines using VMware’s View software. Nortel’s Power over Ethernet (PoE) switching facilitates the transfer of electrical power and data across the infrastructure.[6] Earth Rangers also participates in Compugen’s Green4Good program which works to combat the environmental impact of end-of-life technology products and support charities in need.[7]
Solar electricity
The Earth Rangers Centre has two solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays in operation; both convert the sun’s rays into standard voltage to be used by the building’s systems. In the Earth Rangers Centre parking lot there is a 57.6 kWp dual-axis tracking array on six separate posts consisting of 54 Solgate 175 W panels, provided by Sentinel Power Systems. Each array follows the sun from east to west during the day, increasing output by up to 30 per cent over a fixed panel. Each panel has its own Enphase micro-inverter, further increasing the efficiency of the arrays, and allowing real-time monitoring of the system on panel by panel basis. The second array is located on the aviary this building boasts a 28.08 kWp, designed and installed by Enviro-Energy Technologies Inc,[8] it offsets approximately 10 per cent of the Earth Rangers Centre’s annual needs.[9]
Heating and cooling
The Earth Rangers Centre was one of the first 100 per cent radiant heated and cooled buildings in North America. The building uses 22 kilometres of REHAU radiant tubing, which was laid within the concrete floors and ceiling. The flow of a non-toxic, vegetable-based liquid (water/glycol) through these tubes causes the concrete to become thermally activated. In the warm seasons, cooled liquid is supplied to the concrete slabs. The heat from the computers, people and the sun is absorbed by the concrete, causing the cooled liquid in the tubing to warm up. The liquid is then cooled by rejecting heat to the ground source system or free cooled by directly coupling to our cooling tower. In the colder months, the glycol is warmed by the ground source heat pump before it is supplied to the slab system.
Awards
Earth Rangers
- 2013 Parent’s Choice Award Winner, Website Category[10]
- 2010 Interactive Media Council Awards, Best in Class Animals/Wildlife[11]
Earth Rangers Centre
- 2013 Race to Reduce Building Performance: Lowest Energy Use Award
- 2012 LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance Platinum[12]
- 2012 Oracle Excellence: Eco-Enterprise Innovation Award
- 2012 Schneider Electric One Trophy: Solution Provider: Global Gold
- 2012 Consulting Engineers Ontario: Award of Excellence
- 2011 Toronto Construction Association: Green Building Culture Award
- 2010 Computer World: Top Green IT Organization
- 2010 InfoTech Quest for the Smartest and Greenest IT: Canada’s Greenest IT Department
- 2010 Storage and Networking World Award: Best Practices in Green Computing
- 2006 LEED for New Construction: Gold
- 2006 GE Ecomagination Leadership Award
- 2005 Ontario’s Conservation Action Team: Outstanding Leadership in Sustainable Energy Practices
References
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- ↑ Heads Up Energy Efficiency Newsletter - March 2012
- ↑ New asset reuse program couples environmental and charitable benefits
- ↑ Enviro-Energy Technologies Inc.
- ↑ Earth Rangers Aviary 28.08kW Earth Rangers
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External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Earth Rangers Centre. |
- EarthRangers.com - Children’s website
- EarthRangers.org - Organization’s website
- Bring Back the Wild
- Earth Rangers Centre - Virtual tour of the Earth Rangers Centre
- YouTube
