WESTLOCK — St. Mary School (SMS) students are learning how to make a difference for a cleaner environment.
That was one of the goals behind the 2023 Generate/Navigate Youth Leadership Summit March 16-19 in Canmore, where six students and two teachers from SMS joined 20 high schools from across Alberta and northeast British Columbia selected by the environmental and natural resource charity Inside Education, to participate in the three-day summit.
Students ages 14 to 18, learned about water conservation, energy sustainability and the science, issues, technology, and careers related to energy, climate, and water. SMS attendees included Grade 8 student Akira Mortensen, and Grade 11 students Macy Jespersen, Reint Boelman, Destiney Flader, Brelayna Muller and Landen Moon, along with teachers Daniel Krywko and Brittany Kraychy.
“It’s environmental awareness and stewardship that they can make a difference and they can change themselves to better society as we progress,” said Krywko. “The young leadership summit like this (gives students) a first-hand account how to change things like putting LEDs in the school or putting motion sensor lights in and how they can make an impact.”
About 160 students and teachers interacted with over 70 expert guests from academic institutions, industry, government, Alberta’s Indigenous community, and environmental groups and participated in several hands-on energy and water-focused workshops. They also took part off-site excursions, including guided tours of hydroelectric dams and snow sampling.
“They actually got to go out around Canmore and look at how Canmore is being sustainable as well,” said Krywko, noting upon completion of the summit, each school was challenged to develop and implement an action to engage fellow students and their community about the energy, climate, and water topics they learned about. “So, our action plan this year is to put LED lights in the school and to change our light switches to motion sensor lights.”
The LED lights and motion sensor lights will be installed in school bathrooms and change rooms “as they are left on a lot so energy consumption there is quite a bit,”Krywko added.
Mortensen said the summit was a great opportunity to “expand her horizons for potential jobs in the future” and noted one important thing she learned from the experience. “The carbon capturing was one of the things that we learned (about). I found it interesting to find out that is something that we are now capable of doing,” said Mortensen.
Boelman said he was eager to learn more about the environment.
“I think one of the more interesting things was how our actions and what we do in our everyday lives, like production and especially farming, affects our water systems and water ways and how that pollution can lead to bigger impacts on our environment,” said Boelman. “It was lots of fun and it was pretty informative. We learned a lot about the environment and how we can make things better.”
Krywko said the summit was an important way of teaching the next generation about the environment, natural resources and energy related issues and provided an important experience and “invaluable lessons.”
“They take experts in different sectors of industry and they give us perspectives of how Alberta and how the world is facing energy and water crisis’s,” said Krywko. “Then students take that knowledge and put it into their action plan, then use it to make an impact or change the way we have sustainability in the school and then at home.”
Inside Education is Alberta’s largest environmental and natural resource education charity and provides support for K-12 teachers through various avenues, including in-class learning resources, interactive presentations, field trips and securing grant money where needed.
