Crowther Memorial classes going green

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Crowther Memorial Jr High School teacher Lindsay Walker is encouraging her language arts students to go green, challenging them to create ideas through a class project. 

The idea came after her Grade 8’s watched Pixar’s Wall-E and completed a film study on the movie. 

“Part of that movie is humans have destroyed the earth … and so I wanted to challenge my students (to think about) what we can do to try to make this not happen to our earth,” she said. “They could choose anything they wanted and they were working in groups of four and (thinking about) what they could do to address this issue.”

Walker explained the topic is something she is passionate about and figured it would be an excellent opportunity for her students to feel empowered that they can influence positive change.

The students worked on creating projects entirely of their choosing. Some opted to raise awareness about compost and rain barrels, some chose to raise money for charity, and others chose to look at aquaponics at the school.

Some students also approached the project looking at different ways to incorporate gardens that benefit pollinators into the school.

Students were required to examine what they wanted to accomplish, how would it work, what would be their budget, who the project would affect, how will it make an impact, and create a plan around their idea.

“They were pretty excited, I think partly working in groups they always get excited that they can work with their friends but (there was) no hesitation. The kids were excited and they jumped right in,” said Walker. “Now that that part of our language arts class is over, groups are doing different things to actually implement their ideas, and so that is really cool to see.”

One group applied for a $500 grant from Learning for a Sustainable Future to see more compost bins and verma-composters, as well as to get more plants into different classrooms, while another is interested in raising money for Bee City Canada and their plan is to sell popcorn at lunch for a week at $2 a bag, and then all that money will go towards that charity. Their goal is to raise $100.

This is the first year Walker has encouraged her students to take on a project of this nature.

“I hope that they learned … that they can do important things and hard things. Even though they might feel like they don’t know enough or are scared to, they can work together to reach a goal,” she said. “We do have some composting that happens and groups after lunch take care of that. Our hope is to increase the composting going on in our school.”

Students also have the option to join an agriculture club at the school, or for those in leadership classes, they have some freedom to take on projects largely of their own passions.