Environmentally conscious students at Ladysmith Secondary School are now trying to decide what to do with $1,000 in prize money.
Their Green Team entry, LSS Green Team is Going Green, was one of 10 winning high school projects selected out of 110 during the BC Green Games. The official announcement was made April 11.
“The kids are really excited that we won,” said Shelley Gvojich, LSS instructor in charge of the Green Team.
The LSS Green Team is made up of about eight core members; however, the entire school participated in the online portion of the Green Games contest. Despite receiving more than 500 votes, LSS fell just short of receiving one of the $500 online voting prizes.
“It’s often a small group of people that’s involved in the environmental initiatives, and this involved the entire school,” Gvojich said. “Everybody had the opportunity to go online and vote and be a part of what our school was doing, which was really nice.”
The BC Green Games is Science World’s annual environmental action contest for schools across the province. The contest supports B.C. curriculum and shares students’ ideas, while handing out $24,000 in cash prizes for the best of the best in several categories.
The prize money must be used on environmental initiatives around the school. Students at LSS have kicked a few ideas around, but they are waiting to hear back on a few other grants they have applied for before making a final decision.
“We talked about the idea of getting some student-use laptops,” Gvojich said. “So instead of kids doing stuff on paper, they could do it electronically and then submit it electronically. I don’t know if that’s what we’ll actually end up doing with it, but that’s one of our ideas. We’ve talked about expanding the green space in our school.”
The Green Team is preparing for its next environmental act, which will be to participate in a national Community Clean-Up, sponsored by Tim Hortons, this Thursday.
“This is the first time they will be sorting the garbage into recycling,” Gvojich said.
They will also be taking a trip to Ladysmith Primary School to talk to the Grade 1 students about energy conservation and design T-shirts as part of the school’s participation in the BC Hydro Energy Ambassadors program.
