2017 ContestWinners!

Atlantic:

Mgr-François-Bourgeois

Give a man a potato and you feed him for a day; teach a man to grow potatoes and you feed him for a lifetime — that’s the

long-term impact that the students at Mgr-François-Bourgeois in Shédiac, New Brunswick are trying to establish. Through

the PédagoMax program students will be building a garden box for a low-income resident near the school and will fi lm the

process. The video will be entertaining, but also educational: a how-to on installing and planting a garden box, with a narration

about environmentally sound, local food production. Students will collaborate with the regional Food Security Action Network

to distribute the video provincially.

The whole school has been involved with the ecological initiative. In the fall, many classes were taught in their new outdoor

community classroom, sitting on chairs made of re-used tires and surrounded by native trees. They created a recycling team

where students take shifts at the cafeteria to ensure that students properly sort their waste, while another class did a school-

wide waste audit with the help of a local environmental NGO.

To continue with their PédagoMax program, Mgr-François-Bourgeois plans on using its winnings to purchase technology that

will help to connect with and inspire their community by creating environmental and humanitarian-themed videos, including the

PédagoMax yard crashers video planned for this year.

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Congratulationsto our 10 winning schools!

2017 Contest

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Atlantic: (continued)

Caledonia Regional High School

Caledonia Regional High School in Hillsborough, New Brunswick has been a finalist for the Staples Superpower Your School

contest for the past three years and this is the first year that they’ve won. C.R.H.S. is the first school in Canada to have a

Dronography (Academic Drone Application) program. Dronography students worked with their Environmental Club to plan

and create a film showcasing the beauty of their forests, rivers and communities from above. As the years go on school pride

has increased because though C.R.H.S. is a tiny rural New Brunswick school the students are the first to use this cutting-

edge (but limited) technology to provide novel points of view on environmental issues.

Students also act as environmental lobbyists but also show that they are willing to enter their rivers, forests (to study

salamander populations), and their skies in a concentrated effort to keep the C.R.H.S. community environmentally healthy.

The sustainability and growth of the program relies on the addition of drones and accessories. Therefore, their contest

winnings will go toward action cameras for their drones (such as GoPros), which will help students collect media.

Ontario:

Charles C. McLean Public School

For the past four years, the students at Charles C. McLean Public School in Gore Bay, Ontario have been participating in a

number of environmental programs aimed at promoting agriculture and ecological sustainability within their school and local

community. Whether it is through their gardening area that’s filled with fruits and flowers, or the creation of large composting

containers that produce rich soil, students of all grades have a role in maintaining the ecological sustainability at their school.

Their partnership with the Gore Bay Fish & Game Club has allowed students to raise Chinook Salmon for release into the

North Channel of Lake Huron. The students of C.C. McLean have also learned about the life cycle of salmon, the importance

of habitat and conservation efforts to protect the sport fishery, as well as commercial fishing. The environmental impact of their

project not only supports their local fishery, but also teaches the students lessons about conservation, habitat preservation, and

the impact that humans have on an environment as large as one of the Great Lakes.

With its contest winnings, C.C. McLean Public School hopes to expand its teaching component to include other schools, and

a wider public audience. The school also hopes to create its own YouTube channel to teach others about its microhatchery,

and how it is an important part of the Great Lakes environment.

Leamington District Secondary School

As leaders in the community, Leamington District Secondary School in Leamington, Ontario constantly goes above and

beyond in teaching students and the local community about the environment. The LDSS EcoTeam spearheaded an

educational campaign to reduce idling in the community, mentored local elementary schools to initiate similar campaigns

and appeared before Town Council to request an Idling By-law.

Located along the coast of Lake Erie, LDSS’s most important environmental project has been to protect their watershed from

deteriorating due to harmful algal blooms. LDSS organized a Harmful Algal Bloom Summit where they had Canadian and

American scientists, conservationists, politicians, First Nations, and industry leaders speak on the importance of protecting

these marsh lands.

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Ontario: (continued)

LDSS is also responsible for monitoring the amphibian population at Hillman Marsh and has developed an award-winning

app to make this monitoring easier and more engaging for young people. With its contest winnings, LDSS hopes to develop

more environmental apps, like the amphibian monitoring app, and purchase technology that will allow them to produce

videos to educate residents about ways to minimize their contributions to algal blooms.

New technology will provide access to many citizen science programs and identification apps to teach students about

environmental initiatives that can be applied to their day-to-day for localized sustainability solutions.

Western:

Woodlands School

Students of Woodlands School in Woodlands, Manitoba have continuously shown their support in maintaining a clean

environment. Through their annual community clean-up, students and staff walk through the community to collect litter

from ditches, fields and roadways. The school has also created sustainable projects that relate to the support and revival

of pollinators.

With the installation of a fully functioning observational beehive inside the school, the students study the importance of bees

and threats to their wellbeing while allowing for the monitoring of hive activity throughout the year. Their pollinator revival

program is both sustainable and designed to highlight the integral role of pollinators in the fragile ecosystem as well as our

collective dependency on them for survival.

With its contest winnings, Woodlands hopes to purchase new laptops, cameras and iPads that would be used to research,

photograph and record the activities of pollinators under study. The technology will be used to engage in online collaboration

with other schools and pose questions in real time to experts on next steps and new initiatives for the ecological programs.

Churchill Community High School

Churchill Community High School in La Ronge, Saskatchewan has three tiers of environmental awareness: school-wide

programming, building initiatives and community outreach. With many of their environmental programs giving back to their

community, like their composting projects that help grow food to support the lunch and breakfast programs for students,

CCHS is keenly aware of the importance of sustaining their natural environment for future generations as their community is

deeply rooted to the land.

As ecological leaders in their community, CCHS is hosting the first-ever northern-wide environmental conference for students

in Saskatchewan. The conference will bring together student leaders from across Northern Saskatchewan to enrich scientific

learning, integrate Indigenous perspectives in conservation practices, and foster pro-active engagement with environmental

concerns and community development at the grassroots level. Students will also have the opportunity to develop an Environ-

mental Action Plan to bring back to their home communities in hopes of fostering environmental responsibility and steward-

ship throughout Northern Saskatchewan.

CCHS hopes to use its contest winnings to purchase AV equipment for video recording and production; cameras, micro-

phones, headsets, computers, and software. This will allow students to build a northern network of eco communication,

including remote areas, and providing ‘how to’ videos, lessons, and idea sharing on sustainable practices specific to their

unique geographical and cultural areas.

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British Columbia and Territories:

Sen Pok Chin

Sen Pok Chin in Oliver, British Columbia may have many different ecological programs, but they pride themselves on the

reduction of their ecological footprint. Through their student-led garbage audit, each classroom, hallway, and playground

has a compost and recycling bucket. This audit educated students on the impact of their ecological footprint and they were

able to reduce landfill waste by 90 per cent and were also able to increase their recycling by 90 per cent.

The reduction of their footprint can also be seen within their classrooms. Classes try to use as little paper as possible and

assignments are done on a computer or iPad. The school has also initatied a daily lunch program that reduces packaged

lunch waste. Realizing that food storage requires an enormous amount of energy, students researched and conducted

energy-alternative ways to preserve food—air-drying, canning, power-free refrigeration, underground food storage. As the

students create new and innovative ways to reduce their ecological footprint, they are eagerly spreading the word and

educating their parents about recycling and the environment.

To continue to reduce the amount of paper used in the classrooms, the students of Sen Pok Chin plan on using its contest

winnings to purchase new laptops and iPads so that all students can have access to work on future projects, and technology

for a hydroponic vegetable garden that would supplement their breakfast and lunch program year-round.

Stelly’s Secondary

At Stelly’s Secondary in Cental Saanich, British Columbia, the students actively learn and live to reduce their eco-footprint.

This is seen through their approach to student engagement and action. One way Stelly’s tries to reduce their ecological foot-

print is by attempting to be paperless with fewer printers, more digital e-books and resources, forms online, course booklets

online and a school-wide adoption of Google docs so students and teachers can communicate and collaborate digitally.

Their water refill stations have filled over 300,000 bottles of water, and their ‘bring your own cup’ initiative saves at least 100

polystyrene cups from the landfill every day. Their civics action community projects have cleaned beaches, removed invasive

species from parks, and drawn attention to the derelict boats in their harbour. For the past 15 years Stelly’s has been gaining an

international presence. Their Youth in Action and Global Perspectives students have raised almost $500,000 to build schools

and wells in third-world countries. These initiatives have also caught the attention of Macleans magazine, which named

Stelly’s as one of the top 10 schools in Canada.

With its contest winnings, Stelly’s plans on advancing the superpowers of their students through increasing student access

to devices such as tablets and laptops, and other devices. Their Learning Commons will be restructured to allow for a wider

range of learning opportunities, collaboration stations, and increased Wi-Fi access points. Tablets will enable students to

demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

Quebec:

Morin Heights Elementary

Morin Heights Elementary School in Morin Heights, Quebec has one goal in mind and that is to make their students

environmentally literate and environmental champions by the time they graduate. Shown through their Wild Project, they

make students environmentally literate by connecting them with nature on a regular basis to learn about their immediate

environment (forests, animals, streams, lakes, etc.) and their daily impact on this environment. Students are learning about

their environment through weekly educational activities on Wild Wednesdays while local community experts, like gardeners,

environmentalists, biologists, birders, geologists, etc., assist the school in learning about local environmental issues.

As a small rural school, Morin Heights Elementary School relies on technology to further the eductation of its students. With

the money that they’ve won, the school hopes to purchase tablets, digital field cameras to record the local wildlife, portable

HD cameras, and a video conferencing unit to permit learning through video conferences from universities and museums and

other communities, as well as sharing their information.

Ecole Secondaire de l’Odyssée

For the past 10 years, l’Ecole Secondaire de l’Odyssee in Valcourt, Quebec has been creating new ways to reduce their

carbon footprint. They have created a variety of projects aimed to lower the use of greenhouse gases. Some of these

projects included planting trees in their neighbourhood, partnering with nursing homes to create compost for student

use, and hosting days where the whole school functioned without electricity.

On Earth Day, their annual Cubiks project brings together students, teachers, and other members of the community to

compete in this friendly competition where they gather these cubiks. With one Cubik representing one Kilowatthour of

saved energy, everyone is encouraged to find out ways to save energy. This could be through buying local products,

bicycling, taking shorter showers, and even reducing the consumption of red meat. This is one of the many ways that

l’Ecole Secondaire de l’Odyssee gets their community involved to reduce their carbon footprint.

With its contest winnings, l’Ecole Secondaire de l’Odyssee will purchase laptops, computers, and tablets, video and

photo editing software to continue to conduct research to find more efficient ways to reduce their carbon footprint and

help showcase their eco-initiatives.

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