Page 10 - The Brandon Sun - 2017 Community Leader Awards

10 • COMMUNITY LEADER AWARDS THE BRANDON SUN • THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2017

» ENVIRONMENTAL LEADER AWARD

The Grade 7 class at St.
Augustine School — Back
row, left to right: Dante Wil-
son, Trent Martin, Trevor
Bogue, Nick Houck, Kyle
Haverchuk, Aedan Dyck, Xan-
der Canada, Jill Salvador,
Mathew Hutchings, Tessa
Barcelona, Christian Goymer,
Mia MacKenzie Cochrane,
Megan Barahona and Ricardo
Villeda Reina. Middle row:
Marquita Stewart, Kaelan
Huibers, Brenna Sawchuck,
Delaney Houlihan and Nicoll
Callejas. Kneeling in front:
Noah Hardy, Shane Hutch-
ings, Sydney Huberdeau and
Kailey Pojolainen — won the
Community Leader Award for
the environmental issues
they tackled in Marquita
Stewart's science class.
(Erin DeBooy/ The Brandon Sun)

St. Augustine leads environmental charge

BY ERIN DEBOOY start out wanting to make synthetic ice caps to help save the said Grade 7 student Shane Hutchings. “I talked to a kid who
polar bears — which is a little unrealistic — but then just by was in that class the other day and he said that they use it
When the Grade 7 class at St. Augustine School started talking through their contacts they figured out something they regularly now.”
studying ecosystems in science, they had no idea they were can really do, so holding a polar bear walk to raise money to
embarking on a journey of life-long lessons and bettering the go toward the cause,” Stewart said. “That was the best part for The class said they hope future students will continue to do
community. me, was watching the ideas develop — some of them from very projects like these and become more environmentally
unrealistic projects to very realistic projects.” conscientious.
Rather than just go through an ecosystem unit and cap it off
with a test, their teacher, Marquita Stewart, decided to try a And the kids enthusiastically agree the projects have impacted “Adults want us to do all this so that when they’re gone, no
more hands-on project to get the kids more involved. their outlook on making an environmental difference. offence, there will still be people doing things (for the
environment),” Houlihan said. “It’s definitely something we
“I didn’t know when we started this if it was going to be “We can do a lot in the community,” said Grade 7 student want to continue.”
successful or if it was just going to fail in my face, but I’m glad Delaney Houlihan. “I don’t think a lot of us knew about the
that I did it because it’s amazing,” Stewart said. “It’s been a lot AFFI (Assiniboine Food Forest Inc.) or about a lot of the clean- » edebooy@brandonsun.com
more meaningful. They learned much more from this experience ups going on, but now we know about all this stuff and it’s not » Twitter: @erindebooy
and it was much more personalized — they decided what they that hard to help out.”
were passionate about and they worked toward it. If I just gave
a test, my guess is they wouldn’t remember a thing at this time Some students have already started spreading their knowledge
next year.” outside the classroom.

The students were assigned a project to research various “The other day I was at dance and this kid threw a bottle on
ecosystems around the world and different threats facing them. the ground … my environmental instincts kicked in and I went
A brainstorming of ideas expanded into collaborations with up to him and I was like, ‘Hey! Pick that up,’ and I told him
local initiatives and community outreach. Projects then why that was so bad for the environment,” said Grade 7 student
snowballed into group walks to clean up litter and waterways, Brenna Sawchuk, with a laugh. “So we’re not going to do this
school challenges to stop using plastic water bottles and reduce just in the classroom — we’re probably going to do this in the
paper waste, planting wildflowers to help bees, planting bur oaks summer time, too.”
through an adopt-an-oak program and international initiatives
like adopting polar bear families and sea turtles. They’re also seeing their initiatives take hold.
“A couple months ago, we contacted a few schools and me
“It was so fun to watch the ideas develop. I had one group and another kid from our class went to Ecole Harrison and did
a presentation on One Note and how to save paper by using it,”

Hargreaves environmental commitment unmatched

BY JILLIAN AUSTIN program, which has more than

6,000 households participating.
When a full-time job doesn’t The benefits of the program
feel like work, you know will extend the life of the
you’ve chosen the right career landfill.
path. “That helps reduce our
That is exactly the case for methane gas in the landfill, it
Lindsay Hargreaves, the City helps create natural fertilizer
of Brandon’s environmental that the other departments use
initiatives co-ordinator. in our own operations,” she
“It has been a really fun job,” said.
she said. “I have a lot of Other initiatives in the works
freedom and flexibility in what include an Urban Forestry
I do.” Plan and a tree protection
While she is the sole staff policy. Hargreaves is also
member in the department, she working on a brownfield
works closely with the strategy for the city.
Brandon Environment Brownfields are
Committee and many environmentally contaminated
“awesome volunteers.” She sites, such as an old landfill,
also relies on other city former gas station, factory, etc.
colleagues to help her carry out “We are going to be probably
different programs. one of the first ones in the
Hargreaves’ passion for the province to have a strategy,”
environment started at a young Hargreaves said. It will create
age. She remembers being incentives to “encourage
greatly impacted by the film, developers or property owners
“Erin Brockovich.” It told the to clean up their property and
true story of the environmental redevelop it into something
activist who fought an energy different.
corporation, after she The public is encouraged to
discovered it had contaminated visit brandonenvironment.ca
the drinking water in Hinkley, for more information on the
California. city’s environmental initiatives.
“That kind of drew me in …
I originally wanted to be an
engineer specialized in water » jaustin@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @jillianaustin

resources, but I absolutely hate Lindsay Hargreaves, Environmental Initiatives Coordinator for the City of Brandon, has spearheaded
math so that didn’t work,” she several initiatives aimed at helping the environment. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun)
said, with a laugh.
Over the past five years as the
city’s environmental initiatives co-ordinator, Hargreaves has environmentally friendly. There were 120 students in the
helped launch a variety of green programs. A main focus has program in 2016. Brandon was also selected to be one of seven
been targeting youth, so they can learn important environmental Canadian cities to offer a pilot program called "Zero Heroes,"
practices from a young age. which focuses on organics and food waste at home.

The Waste Reduction School Challenge, for grades 1 to 6, “It’s always interesting going into the classrooms, especially
has students measure their recyclables and organic waste with the school challenge, because I’m in the classrooms every
volumes over a three-week period. day for three weeks” she said. “When I do different landfill
tours, the kids are interested in everything, but I’m always
The city also offers the Planet Protector Academy for students astonished at the reaction from the parents, and the adults that
in grades 3 to 6. It is a web-based resource that has "superhero are also on the tour. It’s entertaining for me.”
missions" for students to help their families become more
A major success in recent years in the Green Cart composting