Author Archives: Chloe Sprecker

Pollinator Garden (Lasagna Garden)

2017, Trenton, Ontario, Canada

In 2017, three students; Xavier, Samuel, and Félix from École Secondaire Marc-Garneau Public Elementary School, proposed the idea to build a lasagna garden. They wanted to build the garden in their school yard to help attract more native species to the area.

The lasagna garden is composed of several different layers, first you must dig 4 inches down and place edging around it. Then the layers are as follows; cardboard, straw, garden fertilizer, compost, aged manure mix with compost, and finally soil.

Pollinator (Lasagna) Garden Student Action Ontario

Once the garden had been created the students planted native flowers in the garden to attract native species of birds and butterflies. The completion of this project will aid in supporting bees and other pollinating species to thrive once again.

The boys placed 4^th overall, and their project was implemented in June 2017, with the help of the student’s classmates

Building Local Rain Gardens

2017, Campbellford, Ontario, Canada

In 2017, Paige a grade eight student at Hillcrest Public School proposed the idea of building a rain garden,and placed 3^rd overall. The idea being that the garden would help to mitigate the amount of runoff entering the local waterway.

She picked a spot in her local community of Campbellford where roads surround the entire perimeter of the canal. After a rain fall the water off of these roads can wash things like sand and salt but can also wash car oils, dirt, animal waste. This then enters directly into the canal and can cause issues.

The project was completed in June of 2017, with the help of her classmates at Hillcrest Public School. She is implementing this rain garden as a solution to storm water problems in her local community, to reduce the amount of runoff going directly from the roads into the local canal, in hopes to improve the water quality.

Let’s Keep our Bees Buzzin’

2017, Campbellford, Ontario, Canada

In, 2017, two students Caroline and Gillian both from St. Mary’s Catholic Elementary School in Campbellford, proposed the idea of building bee boxes, placing 5^th overall.

They wanted to educate people on the declining bee population, and educate people on the issue that without bees other animals, and humans would not be able to survive. They will be planting perennials so that it will not cost money every year to plant more flowers. They handed out posters throughout their school, as well as around the Campbellford area. The poster helped to inform the public on what their goal was, and included a package of flower seeds to enable the general public to start on a bee box of their very own.

The project will play a key role in educating the public about the importance of bees, and a better understanding of how they can help repopulate the bees within our local watershed.

This project was implemented and completed in 2017.

Education Lesson Plan

2017, Carman, Manitoba, Canada Hannah and students student action

Hannah Petrie from Carman Collegiate felt there was a lack of education regarding climate change. Given her experience working with kindergarten and Grade 1 students through an internship program, she determined education was the key.

“I believe teaching the young students will promote a lifestyle that contributes to healthy environment, since they are the future. The lesson I create can be taught by other teachers, I would be willing to share the documents and information needed to reiterate the lecture; the lesson does not need to only be delivered by me. Allowing other teachers to have access to my lesson would only benefit the watershed additionally.”

Hannah created her lesson plan and has already delivered it to local elementary students. Teachers are encouraged by Hannah’s enthusiasm and determination for this type of awareness lesson to spread.

Painting – It Comes Naturally

2017, Warren, Manitoba, Canada

paint nite student action

Rebecca Myskiw is a student at Warren Collegiate in Warren, Manitoba. She saw the potential to make a popular trend into an opportunity to educate the people of her community with a fun paint night! Paint nights are becoming something of a trend, but Rebecca’s special paint night had a twist- she had the participants use environmentally friendly paints to keep her watershed healthy! Regular paints include toxins and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can end up in our waterways and environment. Rebecca found Natural Paints that are 100% eco-friendly, containing no toxins or VOCs! She did not stop at a simple paint night, either. Rebecca donated the supplies (paint brushes, easels, extra paint) to her school’s Art Program after the paint night, so that her school could become more watershed-friendly, as well! Rebecca student action

“Natural Paints are an incredible way to care for our watershed. They don’t solve the problem, but they do help stop it. If I can reduce the amount of regular paints used in the school, I can reduce the amount of pollutants going into the watershed and help care for it with a simple idea for everyone.”

Reducing Greenhouse Gases Through Transportation

2017, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Reducing GHGs student action Manitoba

Everyone knows that car emissions pollute our environment, but Kennedy Link from West Kildonan Collegiate in Winnipeg, MB decided she could do something about it! By encouraging students to carpool or bike to school, she could decrease the harmful emissions that would otherwise be emitted by cars used to transport those students. She had new bike racks installed with an incentive program including prizes for biking, and was able to get her principal to offer “carpooling” parking spots at a discounted rate to entice students to use them.

“Carpooling and biking will reduce our school’s carbon footprint immensely, and is a step in the direction of preserving our watersheds. My proposal may seem small, but every person counts and I hope more and more people become involved.”

Slam Poetry

2017, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Breela Bailey Slam Poetry implementation Manitoba

Breela Bailey from Miles Macdonell Collegiate came up with a simple yet effective way to spread awareness of watershed issues to both youth and adults. She decided to write and produce a slam poem about watershed health and create a video to spread awareness.

“The reason there aren’t many changes being made is because the lack of education. Educating people will make a difference on a larger scale. This is sure enough to start off as a local project but we are hoping that once put out to the public it will be all over Canada. We hope this will affect everyone and show what big differences we can make in our own homes.”

Breela, along with a friend who narrated and donated the use of the equipment, put together a powerful video, which is now available for everyone to view on youtube.

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIYXoqDoVQQ

Water Well Wasted

2017, Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada

MB Water Well Wasted Student Action

Nicole Buckle of Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary School in wanted to make a change in her home of Selkirk, Manitoba. An important part of her community is the public swimming pool. Through some testing, she determined that the shower flow rate in the change rooms could be improved by changing all of the showerheads to a low-flow option. This simple change will save thousands of gallons of water every year!

“After switching out the showerheads in the school, and after seeing the positive changes it is making to our watershed, hopefully it will encourage more people to do so in their own homes. Since the pool is so widely used among the community, it is something that will affect a lot of people in Selkirk, all the while helping the watershed.”

Bottles for Our Future

2017, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

students with water filling station

Plastic water bottles are becoming more of a problem every day. Making bottled water uses fossil fuels, wastes energy, costs a lot of money, and creates pollution when the bottles are not properly recycled. Anne Ocampo and Jessica Tran of Garden City Collegiate decided that they wanted to come up with a way to reduce the amount of plastic water bottles ending up in their watershed by finding an alternative. In a high school with around 1500 students and staff, the girls realized there was only one reusable bottle refill station.

“For a growing high school, it becomes difficult to share simply one water refilling station between 1500 students and staff combined. Students are provided with a schedule that sometimes becomes difficult to make time to wait in a long line to refill their water bottles. It sometimes seems hard to access and utilize, and because of that, plastic water bottles have become their companion.”

With the single filling station being located at one end of the school, it was often difficult to get to between classes. The line-ups could be lengthy, and there often just was not time to wait.

“Choosing to use a reusable water bottle over purchasing plastic water bottles is a small change that can contribute to a bigger change. Having a whole community come together and make these changes will bring us one step closer to overcoming a contributing factor to what damages our local watershed.”

Garburating, Not the Green Option We Thought it Was!

2017, Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada

Anna-Marie Svistoun works in the cafeteria at her high school, Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary School in Selkirk, MB. She noticed that a lot of food waste was getting into her watershed through the garburator in the cafeteria. Anna-Marie came up with a solution: a strainer to collect more of the solid waste and separate it. The garburator at her school used more water for solid waste disposal than liquids, so to remove some of those solids, she would be decreasing water use. Another benefit to Anna-Marie’s solution is that it takes a lot of the organic waste that would end up in the water system out to be disposed of. A simple solution to an everyday problem!

“My project will have a lasting effect, as over 200 students take the Culinary Arts program in our school. Once my colander is implemented, the students will learn not to use their garburators at home. This will have a lasting impact on my watershed in years to come.”