City elementary students win 2017 Young Citizens Awards
STUDENTS HEADING TO OTTAWA FOR HISTORY YOUTH FORUM
Two young Lethbridge students have won a trip to Ottawa as winners of the 2017 Young Citizens Award.
Ten-year-old Isla Stanford from Lakeview Elementary and almost 10-year-old Kailey Oakes from Ecole Agnes Davidson will travel to Canada’s capital city from Sunday to Wednesday to participate in the fourth edition of the Canada’s History Youth Forum.
They will join 24 other students from across the country. Oakes and Stanford are the only two from Alberta.
While there, the group will also have a chance to explore and visit Parliament and the Canadian Museum of History.
The pair participated in the Southern Alberta Regional Heritage Fair held at the Galt Museum earlier this summer. The fair, now in its 22nd year, allows students between Grades 4 to 9 the opportunity to showcase what part of Canada’s history interests them.
Each was given a video camera to create a short video about their Heritage Fair topic. Both Stanford and Oakes were in Grade 4 when they researched their projects. They were two of six locals selected by judges to advance to the next stage — Canada’s History Young Citizen Awards. The videos were posted online and the public was asked to vote for their favourites.
Stanford’s project “Canada’s Flag” involved a lot of research into the work behind Prime Minister Pearson’s efforts to give Canada a new flag before the country’s centennial. She learned about the collaboration from people across the country submitting designs, many which remain in the National Archives of Canada.
Most of those designs incorporated maple leafs, but the sugar maple leaf was chosen due to “it’s strong ties to Canada’s history.”
“I believe that because of the effort and determination of the men and women that contributed to the creation of Canada’s flag 52 years ago our country has a unity and a pride that perhaps we might not have shared otherwise,” wrote Stanford under her video submission. “I love how our country comes together during the Olympics and how other countries easily identify our soldiers because of the maple leaf that is visible on the sleeves of their uniforms. I think this new flag brought our country together, and for that I think we should all be grateful!”
Oakes’ project focused on the “History of Canada’s RCMP.” She filmed most of her video dressed as a Mountie at Fort Whoop-Up.
Oakes learned about the “important role the RCMP has had and continues to play in keeping Canadians safe,” as well as the RCMP’s origins and the role of women within the RCMP. She also learned about how Lethbridge was involved in the history of the RCMP.
She said the most interesting thing she learned was “about an extraordinary woman named Dr. Frances McGill, who did very important work for the RCMP even before women were allowed to join.”
“We’re extremely proud of Kailey and all her hard work,” said her mom, Doreen Oakes. “She was interested in learning more about the RCMP because she knew it was an important symbol to Canada but didn’t really know a lot about it... So it was really exciting for her to learn the connection to her hometown.”
A third Lethbridge student received an honourable mention — Kalia Wong from Ecole Agnes Davidson for her project “Chinese Immigration to Canada.”
To learn more or watch the videos, visit www.youngcitizens.ca.
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