A Grade 5 class from Sorrento Elementary has received a $1,000 award from BC Hydro’s Community Champions program to support a conservation project in their school.
The class will use the money to explore how wilderness near their school can be used to promote well-being and respect for the environment.
“We have a little forest attached to our school – we would promote the concepts of “mini escapes” from the fast-paced, heavily structured daily life,” states teacher Ian Landy in Sorrento Elementary’s submission to BC Hydro.”
The intention of the project is to create an awareness of the benefits of being outside, and to educate the school’s “entire learning community on sustainable practices and uses of our local woods and watershed (especially being so close to Shuswap Lake).”
The expected benefit of the project, states Landy, is it will help to “raise awareness of prominence of anxiety within our learning community (and indeed in much of B.C. education,) and how to blend our local environment with our strategies on how to self-regulate with our students so that they can go to local service groups and then introduce them to similar strategies (including some signage in our local woods with ideas/strategies that can be tried).”
The Community Champions Program supports not-for-profit organizations across British Columbia that show lasting commitment to the environment and sustainability.
Classrooms, kindergarten to Grade 12, vote for the not-for-profit video submission that most inspires them to take action.
As part of their vote, classrooms propose a conservation project that they wish to undertake, which places them in a random draw. Twenty-five classrooms are selected to win $1,000 to help fund their school project.
To view a list of the winning schools and their projects and to watch video submissions for the Community Champions program, visit https://champions.bchydro.com.