Some students at École Voyageur High School in Cold Lake are leading the way in learning about recycling and the environment, and it has already taken them to a big summit in Canmore. Four students from the school where on hand at the Inside Education’s Fourth Navigate: Youth Water and Environmental Leadership Summit in Canmore earlier in the month. Justin Maclellan was one of the student representatives, he says the summit was a sharing of ideas about keeping the environment clean and safe.
“It was about water. We talked about water pollution, how to conserve water. Stuff in that domain.”
“We’re building a living wall at our school, where we can grow plants and other stuff.” says Jessica Merier, who is also on the team and was also at the summit. The wall will have an automatic irrigation system using recycled water, and some of the things grown would be used in school cooking classes and to feed the school rabbits.
École Voyageur was among 20 high schools from across Alberta at the summit, which also addressed climate change and personal action.
Maclellan says if he could tell anybody why his work is important, he would say that keeping water clean and usable is key to a happy country.
“I think just conserving water is super important. It’s a super valuable resource and in Canada we’re luck to have it. That’s one of the main things I would say.”
Other speakers at the conference included experts from the Government of Alberta, the University of Lethbridge and the Alberta Geological Survey.