West Kelowna Grade 2 Class Wins $1,000

A West Kelowna Elementary School has won $1,000 from BC Hydro in its annual Community Champions contest, which will help students with a sustainability project.

The Grade 2 class at Shannon Lake Elementary was selected as one of the 25 finalists to be awarded the funding. According to teacher Sharon Foster, the students have big plans for the money.

“Our project was to raise kokanee salmon to be released into Mission Creek,” explains Foster. “But as we were learning about the fish we learned that there is so much water waste going on in our own community. So we want to purchase energy saving taps for the older part of the school and save water.”

Students would like to install motion taps that will shut off automatically when not in use. So much water waste comes from taps left running and the motion taps would cut that waste significantly. The class would also like to see a second project come out of the funding from BC Hydro that would attract bees and butterflies to the school.

“Currently we don’t have any flowers or trees at the school to attract bees and butterflies or provide shade for students,” adds Foster. “We would like to plant a garden to attract the bees and include flowers to attract butterflies too. Hopefully these will bring about an outdoor classroom space for us to use to study nature.”

Foster hopes to stretch the funding as far as possible but is looking for help from the community as they will need to purchase the trees and flowers as well as little fences to protect them while growing. The cost to swap out the washroom taps is also expected to be expensive and Foster hopes the community will step up and help the students reach their goal.

For more information about the project or to get involved call Shannon Lake Elementary at 250-870-5132 or email Foster at Sharon.foster@sd23.bc.ca.