LETHBRIDGE, N.L. — In light of attention brought to climate crisis with many recent protests held around the world, students of Heritage Collegiate in Lethbridge decided to incorporate an eco-friendly element to their annual Terry Fox Walk.
Student council member Paige Humby told The Packet her little sister, who attends school at Bishop White in Port Rexton, also did a beach cleanup at Champneys as part of efforts to support their environment.
Humby says they decided to do a carbon reduction day, which included picking up litter, collecting plastic and other recyclables discarded in their community.
“We want to raise a better awareness,” said Humby.
“This could enlighten a couple students and maybe they would make action to do their own stuff like this in the future.”
To anyone who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with preventing climate change, Humby says it’s an important issue that needs to be front and centre.
She suggests if climate crisis was rapidly apparent, instead of occurring over decades, people would be more receptive to these types of causes.
Student council also helped support the environmental initiative by having a zero emissions day, as well as other eco-friendly efforts.
They suggested fellow students bring reusable items like containers, bottles, forks and knives, and reusable straws.
They also conserved energy within the school itself by turning the lights off if natural light was sufficient during the day.
As for the walk itself, students gathered many bags of garbage from the ditches lining the street in Lethbridge, the route for their walk.
Humby says holding the environmental initiative alongside the annual Terry Fox Walk united two positives.
“Cancer research means a lot to people because they’ve had family members or friends die from (the disease),” says Humby. “The whole of climate change (also) means a lot to us kids because we want to have a future...It kind of relates to that.”
For more photos from the event, go to www.thepacket.ca.
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Article edited to correct error.