Environmental Commitment

Environmental conservation is a top priority for The Children's Museum. Not only are we working hard to promote and teach energy and environmental awareness and conservation, we are taking great steps to model what we teach.

We have taken on a number of initiatives in order to educate our visitors and to reduce the Museum's footprint on the environment. These initiatives are listed below:

David Suzuki

David Suzuki describes the Museum as a leader protecting our planet!

Listen to what he has to say in an audio podcast.

The Living Wall

In January of 2007, a Living Wall was installed in the Museum's Atrium. Aside from its esthetic beauty, the Living Wall is the best biological air filtering system in the world. Not only does it remove airborne pollutants, it also reduces the amount of electrical energy required to cool the Museum in the summer.

Kids Inspiring Change - Energy Awareness and Conservation Program

We believe that children who grow up caring about the environment will become dedicated to preserving the world around them. For this reason, the Museum specifically designed and piloted a grade one school program, meeting every single curriculum expectation for the Energy and Control Science and Technology strand, to promote energy awareness and conservation. Due to the overwhelming success of the pilot program, the Museum has continued to offer this program, and in its second year, they have developed similar programs for grade two and five.

zerofootprint

The Museum partnered with zerofootprint to develop a computerized, ecological footprint calculator specially designed for children. By answering a series of simple questions, visitors can calculate their ecological footprint, discovery their own personal impact on the environment. Visitors can also learn simple, practical ways to reduce their footprint and help to conserve the environment.

Click here to calculate your ecological footprint!

Solar Panel Installation

With funding assistance from the Ministry of Energy, The Museum installed solar electric panels that will save us over $650 a year in energy cost and 2,268 pounds of CO2 emissions from going into our air. The solar panels can be seen from the inside of The Museum using an all-weather webcam.

Offsetting

Partnering with rare Charitable Research Reserve we will work toward planting trees to offset materials we use each day. This includes all paper products and office supplies as well as electricity and water usage and driving for the staff commuting to and from work.

Greening the Roof

Plans are underway to "green the roof" of The Children's Museum. When green plants cover our roof, we will be helping to balance our carbon emissions. We will also benefit from increased insulation, providing a cooler Museum in the summer and a warmer Museum in the winter. This increased insulation will further reduce our use of energy for heat and cooling the building.

Geothermal Heating

Plans are underway to fully heat and cool the Museum using renewable geothermal methods. Once our geothermal system is in place, we will no longer require electricity from the grid to heat and cool the Museum.