A project by a Grade 4 class at North Delta’s McCloskey Elementary School has won an award for climate activism — one specially created to recognize the students’ outstanding work.
At this year’s Youth Climate Activism Awards, created and administered by the Salt Spring Institute for Sustainability Education & Action (I-SEA), Barbara Woodside’s class was awarded the inaugural Inspirational Classroom Award for a multi-part project that involved research, poster making, essay writing and presenting to other classes at the school.
“Students researched climate change and its many causes, such as deforestation and fossil fuels, before determining what they could do as a class and a school to make a positive difference,” Woodside said in a post on the Delta School District website. “They decided to turn their attention to an issue that is directly within their control: reducing the amount of garbage that goes to the landfill.”
Her students made posters and delivered presentations on climate change to every other class at the school aimed at encouraging everyone — students and staff — to be more mindful of what they throw in the garbage and inspiring them to reduce their waste.
The students also wrote individual essays before working in small teams to put together group essays on the topic. Those group essays were submitted for the Youth Climate Activism Awards, leading I-SEA to create a new award category in recognition of both Woodside’s leadership and the students’ work towards bettering the planet.
“I was inspired to get the class involved in this important initiative as it provides valuable learning for them in a number of areas including science, writing and activism,” Woodside said. “I am so proud of the class. They worked so hard on their individual and group essays, and thoroughly enjoyed giving presentations to the other divisions.”
On Wednesday (June 27), the school district’s director of learning services, Neil Stephenson, presented Woodside and her students with a $1,500 cheque from I-SEA in recognition of their efforts, which the class has decided to donate to support the creation of a mural at McCloskey that highlights the importance of composting and recycling.
Created in 2022 and inspired by then-16-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s speech in Vancouver in 2019, the Youth Climate Activism Awards aim to recognize “the power teenagers can rally to impact real change and speak truth to our leaders,” according to I-SEA’s website.
The goal of the awards is to recognize students by way of their stories on what they are doing to make a difference for our planet, and to share those stories far and wide to inspire better treatment of our plant. The inaugural awards focused on the 12 Vancouver Island school districts, and in 2023 the initiative was extended to all B.C. students under the age of 20.
For more on this year and last year’s winners, visit youthclimateactivismaward.org.
SEE ALSO: 56 local youths honoured by Delta Rotary clubs
SEE ALSO: Youth ask Delta MP for jobs program to address climate emergency
editor@northdeltareporter.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter