Education

• The tours were designed to educate students and provide "hands-on" experience. Each tour was unique and provided a number of specific public works tasks for the students. The tours included:

Roads and Waste Management Students visited the traffic control center where they had the opportunity to test all the traffic lights and track an accident on a Regional road.  In the sign shop students made decals that were placed by hand on a new police car. Each student made decals with their names on it to take home as a memento. Students started out by watching a video on the lifecycle of the Region's Blue Box recyclable materials. Following this they were tasked with an activity of sorting mock refuse into the proper categories of recyclables, organic waste, garbage and hazardous materials.  Students then had the opportunity to tour the facility and learn from employees.

Water and Wastewater

While touring the wastewater facility students discussed why conservation is important for the environment, the history of the building and who it serves, and how new technology is acquired and implemented. They visited the laboratory and each student had an opportunity to perform water quality tests.

Transit and Forestry

Students discussed bus safety information and how GPS and other technologies are incorporated into our buses. They were given a full bus tour that included sitting in the driver's seat, climbing on the bumpers to conduct maintenance and looking under the hood at the bus engine.  They were also given a demonstration on how the wheelchair lift operates.

In the York Regional Forest, students listened to a recording of frog calls before heading out on a tour to a local pond. Hearing the sounds beforehand gave students the opportunity to recognize the sounds while in the forest. As part of the experience, the students waded right into the pond and caught tadpoles. They learned about the lifecycle of frogs and their role in the forest ecosystem, as well as leaving nature as they found it, by returning the baby frogs back to the pond before leaving.