Grade 7 students at Lake City Secondary School spent the day Wednesday both learning and displaying their Earth Day knowledge.
In an event hosted by the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society (CCCS), students cycled through various booths learning from members of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the UBC Alex Fraser Research Forest, the Invasive Species Council and the Air Quality Round Table, as well as the CCCS.
Students sorted garbage from plastic at one station, learned to identify fish at another, counted tree rings, and even played a game to learn how invasive species attack local plants.
The event is the culmination of a variety of presentations and work leading up to Earth Day, that will take place April 22, that students have been participating in since February, alongside an earth challenge packet.
“They’re learning about our main topics: water, waste, air, invasive plants, and nature,” said CCCS executive director, Jenny Howell.
In the afternoon, each class took part in a Jeopardy-style quiz with each topic, with teams of students taking on the other classes in an attempt to win the choice of a field trip to a number of locations, ranging from Gavin Lake, the Horsefly spawning channels, the community forest, Biff’s Ponds and the city landfill.
The event, said Howell, shows how science is being done every day in our community.
“Students can see where science can lead them. It’s also a great way to bring organizations together like this, because all of the students see all of us at different stages so it’s neat to see us all in one place.”
The Earth Day event included all nine Grade 7 classes at Lake City Secondary, making up approximately 225 students.
One, Kylie Davis, said she enjoyed learning about the invasive plants, as well as interacting with the CCCS’s booth where students could sort recycling from garbage.
“It helps learning about this stuff, because then you can learn how to prevent it,” she told the Tribune. “We can learn how to get energy without taking away our natural resources that aren’t renewable.”
Paityn Rogers, who thought the Air Quality Round Table’s station was the most interesting, found the stations informative.
“It gives us knowledge to save our planet before our time runs out and the planet is destroyed by air pollution and garbage,” she said.
“We can save our planet for future generations, for our kids and grandkids and make sure that they can have a healthy planet where they don’t have to worry about pollution or garbage going into the environment.”