Canada

Toilet Buddy Town

2013 Manitou, Manitoba, Canada

Lenina Howatt from Nellie McClung Collegiate wanted to propose a simple solution to help conserve water.

“Every litre of this resource is incredibly precious to our environment, especially due to its scarcity. As soon as humans intervene, extracting water from its natural watershed, nature’s course is interrupted. The water is chemically processed and treated, “contaminated” with human use, and further treated again. This drawn out and lengthy process is energy inefficient and costly! But, we can reduce our impact on our watersheds and their natural cycles, further preserving them and all their benefits (filter/buffer water, provide drought/flood stability and “bounce back” capability, maintain biodiversity, promote primary productivity, support wildlife, and erosion and sedimentation control) by simply doing one thing… CONSERVING water!”

She suggested something inexpensive, easy-to-install called “Toilet Buddies”. “Toilet Buddies are plastic, water-filled bags that hang inside your toilet tank, displacing water and saving you the liter capacity of the bag each time you flush!”

Her goal was to distribute toilet buddies to each household in her community and thanks to an $800 contribution by Nutrien, this proposal became a reality.

“My goal for this is to make my town more water-wise and to locally pave a water conscious path for the future!”

Riperian Restoration

2013 Forestburg, Alberta, Canada

The Golden Prairie 4-H club out of Forestburg has made a positive impact in the Battle River Watershed. Maven Boddy, a natural leader in the club, entered the Caring for our Watersheds contest with a proposal to improve riparian health that was both multi-faceted and forward thinking. Her plan to improve riparian areas involved planting hundreds of trees along the riverbank, but that wasn’t all. Her plan also incorporated educating the club and community on the importance of riparian areas and implementing a long-term health assessment on the project site.

Prior to tree planting, the club planned an educational canoe ride along the area of the river that would be restored with the seedlings. During the ride participants were taught about riparian areas and factors contributing to their declining health. This was also a great opportunity for a crash course in Alberta ecology, with a plethora of birds and other animals to see and hear.

On the tree planting day approximately 30 volunteers from the 4-H club gathered to plant over 200 seedlings. A variety of native trees and shrubs were chosen that would grow well in the Alberta climate. These trees will improve the strength of the riverbank with their roots and also provide wildlife with habitat for years to come. The project site will now be monitored in order to determine how the health of the area is improving. Maven invited local experts to carry out riparian health assessments and bird surveys, and a second round of assessments is planned for a few years down the road. Funding for the trees and health assessments came from a Victory Canola 4-H Grant as well as from Nutrien’s implementation funds.

Tree Huggers

2013 Campbellford, Ontario, Canada

Taylor, Christina, and Brooke, grade 8 students from Kent Public School in Campbellford identified that their watershed is lacking in trees. Currently, our watershed forest cover is only 21% when it should be (at a minimum of) 30%. We’re looking to increase this forest cover. By increasing the amount of trees in our watershed, will help purify the air and water.

Taylor, Christina and Brooke proposed planting trees in their community. Their project was implemented by planting 62 trees in the spring of 2014 as part of a larger edible forest project at Kent Public School.

This Caring for Our Watershed idea has had a positive impact for the health of the Lower Trent Watershed and the local communities.

Bag it! Trash it!

2013 Brighton, Ontario, Canada

Tyler Brown, a grade 9 student from East Northumberland Secondary School won first place for his idea called Bag it! Trash it! Tyler identified that dog waste that is left on the ground by pet owners throughout the watershed is a problem with an easy solution. He identified various environmental concerns such as contamination of local water systems as well as health concerns from diseased dog feces

Tyler proposed installing dog waste dispensers with biodegradable bags in convenient public locations throughout the watershed to encourage dog owners to pick up dog waste and dispose of it in an environmentally friendly manner.

The uptake of Tyler’s solution has been tremendous throughout the Lower Trent Region Watershed with a total of 18 dog waste dispensers to be installed as a result of Tyler’s idea. From May 2013 to August 2013, 14 dog waste dispensers were installed in high canine areas in the towns of Colborne, Brighton (including two Conservation Areas; Proctor Park and Goodrich-Loomis) and Frankford. In the fall of 2013 another eight dog waste dispensers were installed in Presqu’ile Provincial Park.

Tyler’s Caring for Our Watershed idea has had a positive impact for the health of the Lower Trent Watershed and the local communities.

Battery Waste Disposal

2012 Brighton, Ontario, Canada

Kevin Peterson, Grade 8 student at Brighton Public School identified improper disposal of batteries as Battery waste poses a large problem in landfills since large amounts of batteries are disposed improperly. The main problem with batteries in landfills is the chemicals such as lead, cobalt, cadmium, lithium and potassium hydroxide that get leaked into drinking water then consumed by humans. This then causes a large amount of medical conditions.

Kevin noted that, although there are battery recycling programs in place, a lack of advertisement as well as lack of drop off boxes remains a problem. His proposal was to display posters where batteries are sold to inform customers about the battery recycling programs. In addition drop off boxes for batteries are needed in more local businesses and community centers not just big box stores to help expand these programs into smaller communities.

After the Caring for our Watersheds contest Kevin presented his idea to Brighton Municipal Council. They were so impressed that they not only gave Kevin permission to locate a battery drop off box and poster in the municipal building, they also agreed to fund the cost of all the boxes and posters.

Project Penguin

2012 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Alana Krug-McLeod from Aden Bowman Collegiate in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, proposed the idea of developing an educational and entertaining program that will encourage individuals to understand and protect vital water sources – both locally and internationally. Project Penguin is set up to provide individuals new reasons to care about the environment and new ways to join others to make a difference. It is important to learn why everyone’s everyday actions matter and how to make changes that prevent harm and that will do good.

To undertake this informative program, Alana decided to set up a number of geo-caches. The materials contained within the geo-caches included sample cards and decorated “penguin” eggs. The cards and eggs were created with the assistance of the art club.

An educational DVD containing videos and information shorts was then created and distributed to schools.

GreenLemon

2012 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Kyle Cousins with the EcoJustice program at St. Edward School in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan developed a wonderful idea about how to help protect the watershed. Kyle’s idea was to create an environmentally-friendly and chemical-free all-purpose cleaner that would be simple enough for people to make in their own households. He chose to make a chemical free cleaner for his watersheds project because when you’re cleaning and you use a chemical-based cleaner and some of the cleaner goes down the drain, it will eventually end up polluting the watershed. However, if you use a chemical-free cleaner, then you don’t have to worry about chemical-based pollution coming from that cleaner. Greenlemon (lime) photo student action project

The benefits of using a homemade cleaner greatly outnumber the disadvantages. First off, it will save you money because cleaners at stores can be quite pricey, but when you make your own, the ingredients are much less expensive. Next, GreenLemon is environmentally friendly because without chemicals there is no chemical pollution. Another advantage to making your own cleaner is that you can use the same bottle over and over again, thus you will not need to get a new bottle every time. This will reduce the amount of plastic that either needs to be recycled or might find its way into the watershed or landfill. As well, since GreenLemon has no chemicals, it is safer for children and pets, as well as adults.

Kyle created a blog to help share his cleaning solution in addition to including the recipe at this school and his school newsletters.

GreenLemon Cleaning Solution- 4L Recipe 3L of Water, 3 cups Vinegar, 1/4 cups Baking Soda Add 15ml of Lemon Juice to every 1L of solution at time of use

Upgrading Restrooms in My School

2012 Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada

Dean Webber from Lord Selkirk Regional High school proposed to reduce water use at the school by installing water sensors in the washrooms.

“Using automatic taps decreases water usage by up to 1.7 liters per use. If less water is used by the school then less pollution will be emitted into the environment by cleaning and heating the water.”

The water taps have now been installed in the bathrooms at Lord Selkirk. The school has also purchased 4 more taps so that the main bathrooms all have water saving automatic taps. The Caring for Watersheds taps sponsored by Nutrien (at a cost of $1,200) started the ball rolling on the implementation of water saving devices within the washrooms in our school. “The students have been really respectful of these new taps and there have been several positive articles written about them in the school newspaper” states Angela Bajt, educator at the school.

Recycling Campaign

2012 Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada

Maddison Wolf from Lord Selkirk Regional High school observed problems with recycling at her school; the bins were often overflowing onto the floor. She spoke to the janitorial staff found out the system in place could not handle the volume of recyclables from the school. “I did a poll of some of my peers, which revealed they were less likely to recycle when there was recycling piled onto the floor around the full bins”. At $70, she proposed a simple solution of purchasing additional bins for the school at key locations.

“We placed the recycling bins in 2 locations next to the Pepsi drink machines. Before this the plastic drink bottles were just thrown into the garbage cans located close by. We had to empty the small bin two times week and the large bin every week. The students in the resource area were responsible for emptying the bins. This has saved a lot of bottles from entering the landfill.”

The Learning Garden Project

2012 Gimli, Manitoba, Canada

Cheyenne Svenson, Katelyn MacVicar, Heida Arnbjornson and Emma Wear from Gimli High School live on the shores of Lake Winnipeg and are very conscious of how what happens in the lake is intertwined with the health of their watershed.

This dynamic team proposed to create a garden area by their school to provide produce for their cafeteria and Foods & Nutrition program as well as their local Evergreen Needs community assistance program (which provides assistance to members in many ways, including food hampers).

After months of planning the students at Gimli High School were very exciting to start the construction of their school’s Learning Garden. Along with Nutrien’s contribution of $2,000, this garden was made possible by two community organizations: Nutrients for Life and the Manitoba Eco-Network. “The Learning Garden is a great opportunity to engage students with hands on learning opportunities in many different curricular areas. The Learning Garden is a pilot project to teach students the importance of food security issues that are prevalent here and around the world. GHS’s Learning Garden is also being used as an exemplar for other schools in Manitoba to create their own gardens.” says Lisa Pidwinski, project teacher at Gimli High School.