Vernon elementary school starts plastic-free initiatives

Photo: School District 22 Media & Communications

One class of Grade 5 students managed to influence their entire school to become more environmentally conscious. The youngsters in Mrs. O'Brien's class at Kidston Elementary have been learning about the environment and how they can take care of our planet.

"We don’t have garbage cans in our class," said Kobe. "We recycle or compost everything!"

In the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, the class learned about how many single-use plastics there can be in a day. Last year, students collected about 1000 single-use plastics from all the classes, and estimated that up to five times that amount went home with students too.

Mrs. O'Brien's class challenged the rest of their school, and other schools in district and province, to join them in a plastic-free Valentine's Day celebration. Many classes and schools in the district took them up on that challenge, and even schools in Maple Ridge and Revelstoke participated.

After the success of their Valentine's Day celebration, Mrs. O'Brien's class will be writing letters to all of the parent advisory councils and principals in the district to follow in their footsteps. The class has many more initiatives planned for the rest of the school year.