New Eco-Team making a difference
New student starts up club at St. Teresa
Ada Speck has made a name for herself at her new elementary school, other than “the new girl.”
She’s the one who created an Eco-Team at St. Teresa School and is helping turn the institution into a more green-friendly place.
The 11-year-old started at St. Teresa’s in April, after her family moved to the city from The Town of the Blue Mountains.
As an environmentally conscious youth, Ada was surprised to learn there wasn’t an environmental club at school.
She’d been a part of the Green Team at her previous school and has been an Earth Ranger, an online kids’ conservation organization, since she was 4.
Wanting to continue her environmental work and encourage others to step up, too, Ada pitched her Eco-Team idea to the school principal.
After the club got the go ahead, Ada recruited other kids in her Grade 6 class to join.
They manage the school’s recycling and speak to kids about their carbon footprint.
With the world’s population continuing to grow, the world’s
waste grows with it, Ada said.
“A lot of people don’t really think about it, so you have help people, more than just yourself, with recycling,” she said.
More waste means more pollution, she added, which hurts animals and contaminates water.
As a young Indigenous person, Ada knows it’s her responsibility to protect the water, her mother Marnie Speck said.
“She’s been taking on more of a leadership role and it just makes me so proud,” Speck said.
Ada recently organized a battery blitz at school, collecting 80 pounds of batteries over three weeks. She’s planning another one in the new year.
Composting is also on the Eco-Team’s to-do list, along with no-waste lunches and fundraising for endangered animals.
At her last school, Ada held a bake sale to raise money for peregrine falcons.
The young environmentalist hopes the Eco-Team will continue at St. Teresa’s long after she’s moved on, with other students taking the reins in two years.
Although the move to a new school wasn’t easy, Ada said the experience allowed her to showcase her aptitude while the new kid spotlight was still on her.
“I just wanted to show that I can do more than just being that new person.”