West Vancouver’s Rockridge Secondary is in the running to receive funding to grow a garden project at the school.
Superpower Your School, a contest created by Staples Canada, in partnership with Earth Day Canada, sees publically funded schools across Canada, including Rockridge, showcasing their most innovative ecological programs and projects that make a positive environmental impact in their schools and community.
The top 10 finalist schools from across Canada will receive $20,000 worth of technology from Staples.
At the Caulfeild area school, the most important environmental project is its garden.
Founded by Rockridge’s environment club in 2013, students and staff have worked to enhance the garden throughout the years by maintaining it twice a week.
Adding new boxes, as well as researching and learning what to plant and harvest cycles in the school year keeps the garden thriving.
“This is an important environmental project, because by selling and promoting our locally grown vegetables to the community we are able to educate our community members about the importance of sustainability, and locally grown food,” according to Rockridge’s submission for the Staples contest.
“Our garden is also an important education source for fellow and younger students from local elementary schools. We host an annual ‘Eat, Learn, Lead’ event, in which we teach our peers about sustainable food practices, we incorporate games in order to inspire students to teach others about the environment, and we bring in a chef to help cook a meal with the help of students, using vegetables from our garden, harvested by us.”
Conducted by a panel of volunteer organizations interested in sustainability, the final judging takes place in the weeks leading up to Earth Month with the 10 winners – five elementary and five secondary schools – to be announced in early April.
“Every year, we are completely inspired by the programs developed by students and teachers to make the world a cleaner and greener place,” stated Staples Canada CEO David Boone in a press release.
“It’s a great pleasure for us to award the next generation of environmental leaders with the equipment they need to keep growing and learning to be environmentally responsible.”
