By Teena Monteleone

Lac La Ronge school recognized for green initiatives

Oct 1, 2018 | 12:00 PM

A school in northern Saskatchewan is nurturing the next generation of green building leaders in the country.

Churchill Community High School (CCHS) in La Ronge was named one of the top four schools in Canada demonstrating long-term commitments towards sustainability and making their communities greener through a variety of environmental projects. It was part of a contest by the Canada Green Building Council, a not-for profit, national organization that works to advance green building and eco-friendly community practices in the country.

“Our school has been involved in a lot of green projects over the years, so when I stumbled across the contest I figured it wouldn’t hurt to enter,” teacher Melissa Cromarty said.

The Grade 7 to 12 school received an honourable mention in the contest. First place was a tie between a school from Alberta and another from Ontario. Second place went to Westwood Community High School in Fort MacMurray, Alta.

“I was blown away by the schools that came in first and second,” Cromarty said. “The things they are doing inspire me to do more.”

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CCHS already has an impressive recycling program. The school saved 73,050 plastic bottles with the installation of filtered water bottle filling stations and at lunchtime, students set up a recycling centre to collect and sort recyclables and compost.

“Any scrap food from lunches or snacks we put into our compost bins and then after the stuff is composted we use it in our raised beds where we grew rhubarb, potatoes and tomatoes over the summer. That was then used to make food for the students,” Cromarty said.

They also got rid of plastic straws and replaced paper plates, Styrofoam and plastic containers with real dishes, installed solar panels, dual-flush toilets, motion-sensitive taps and lighting and make year-round use of the school’s location in the boreal forest region to promote health and wellness.

In 2017, CCHS hosted the first ever Northern Saskatchewan Student Eco Conference providing workshops on community gardens, invasive species, composting, indoor gardens, carbon footprint and more. Another conference is planned for the end of October.

“Students and teachers from around the North will then take what they learned and choose an environmental action project to work on in their school and carry that out for the remainder of the year,” she said.

In the future, Cromarty said she’d like to implement a rain water collection system and develop an outdoor garden with medicinal plants so students can learn to recognize the plants traditionally used in Cree culture.

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