Dignitaries and Officials visit Knowlton Academy
The committee for the Knowlton Academy Greenhouse and Garden Project excitedly received a special visit last Thursday by Quebec’s Minister responsible for the English community, Kathleen Weil as well as Lise Champagne, attachée for MNA Pierre Paradis, officials from Lab-école, La Tablée des Chefs, Croquarium and the Eastern Townships School Board. They all came to check out a number of features that Knowlton Academy implements: The Greenhouse and Garden Project, the legendary Bistro program, and also the sports program that highlights an almost 40-year-old alpine skiing program. It is the committee’s hope that Quebec Government will continue to support the project. It would also like Lab-école or La Tablée des Chefs to foster a partnership with Knowlton Academy. And as Susan Muir, Chairperson of the KAGGP committee said, the Croguarium program is one for the KAGGP to get to know more about.
When underwater diver and videographer, Will Allan, who also happens to be an alumnus of Knowlton Academy, came to visit the K.A. students at the second annual career day, they were so inspired by his presentation of “Revolution” that the outcome was a pro-active movement by the Secondary One students to make their school a plastic straw-free zone. As well, they aim to encourage other schools and eateries to follow suit.
These students that are about to transition from Knowlton Academy to Massey-vanier High School have done a lot of research on the impact of discarded plastic straws.
“We chose the project because of the ocean. If we use plastic, it is killing our coral, endangering our sea life. We love our planet and want to protect it,” explained Ben Mcauley. Odessa Roslin chimed in to say that her class had found out just how bad straws are when they watched “Revolution”. “We wanted to find out more so we watched a Ted Talk with nine-year-old Molly Speer from Australia. She started a movement at her school that soon became “Strawsno-more”. Eventually her drive to rid plastic straws caught on so much that Molly ended up speaking about her mission on Ted Talk. “Straws get stuck in the noses of sea-turtles,” bemoaned Roslin.
According to Braydan Maiger, over 500 million straws are discarded every day in North America. “The first straw ever discarded is somewhere still because it cannot decompose.”
These Secondary One students say that if Vancouver is completely straw free, they should be able to succeed in making their school straw free. And then they would like to expand their idea to the other elementary schools in
These Secondary One students at Knowlton Academy are working toward making their school as a straw-free zone in TBL in a quest to reduce the millions of straws that are discarded on a daily basis across North America.
the area as well as Massey-vanier and a couple of restaurants too. “For now, we are not banning them. We want to make the school a straw-free zone but know that it is more likely to succeed by reducing the amount being used. After all, we have succeeded in ridding the use of plastic bags here!” said Emma Lightbody. Katrina Burcombe spoke about straws made from alternative products such as metal, paper, pasta, bamboo, and glass. One of the students even had a sample of a washable/reusable unit that has its own pop-up straw.
“Want to influence the kids coming into Sec One to continue this process and we will try to take the same idea to Massey Vanier,” piped up Jack Eldridge.
The students have made brightly coloured signs and posted them all around the school and its grounds. They say they know that they won’t be
able to completely abolish them for now but they are hoping to reduce the amount that are being used. They drafted a letter to the governing board for support on eventually making the school a straw-free zone in TBL. They have also communicated with the folks running the breakfast program. And they are hoping that the PPO (Parents committee) will agree to subsidize the purchase of the washable/reusable drink containers for students bringing their lunches.
Proud teacher of these students, Sheila Perry says that being a “We School” has clearly empowered her students. “This is a wonderful legacy for an amazing Secondary One. We’ve created a bunch of social activists who know that giving people alternatives will pave the way to helping keep the planet cleaner and safer.”