Beekeeping, aquaponics and gardening are some of the things that kept Lacombe Composite High School students busy this past year.
Projects created by the school’s EcoVision group, which aims to grow student leaders through student-led environmental projects, were celebrated Friday with workshops and an African feast.
Steve Schultz, LCHS teacher, said EcoVision projects are built to help the environment, enhance student education with hands-on experience and create community collaboration.
“The student is the key to everything,” said Schultz. “All these projects are dreamed by students, and the students that run them are very passionate about the projects.”
Students celebrated the creation of a new aquaponics system, which raises aquatic animals and grows plants in water.
“It has all the different types of aquaponics systems you could possibly build all in one system,” he said.
Also being celebrated was garden planting and the new beekeeping program, which was just endorsed as part of the school’s official curriculum.
Schultz said the beekeeping program is the first of its kind in Canada. It’s safer than some people may think, he added.
“The bees do not go out of their way to sting like wasps do,” he said. “We have all our bees surrounded by a fence and we have lots of signage to warn people there are bees in the vicinity.”
Lacombe Upper Elementary School students were invited to take part in the celebration Friday.
“That spreads the vision and gets them excited about starting a project in their own school, whether it’s a little indoor garden, a grow box or a raised bed in their outdoor garden,” he said.
Students in the environmental club try to complete a project in three years. Projects begin with a year of research and grant-writing, then a year looking for community partners. The construction and operation of a project is done in the third year.
EcoVision is currently working on a living roof gazebo.
“All their hard work is now being recognized and all their ideas are being promoted in the school,” Schultz said.
For more information on the project visit lchsecovision.weebly.com.
