Sarah Hain’s Grade 3/4 classroom at Stawamus Elementary was a hive of activity Thursday afternoon. Students were huddled in groups looking at books or working on drawing projects.
The class seemed to have more than a few outspoken students who knew their own minds and were not afraid to express themselves.
One little boy pulled his friend into line with a gentle scolding when the class was told to head outside. Another little girl, Elise Bourdon, dressed all in pink and wearing a stuffed penguin around her neck, stated definitively where the best spot would be for the class to go once they all got outside.
It isn’t surprising then that this particular group of precocious children is taking a definitive stand on energy conservation.
The class is involved in the Canadian Classroom Energy Diet Challenge. The contest and energy literacy project aims to teach students from kindergarten to Grade 12 about where energy comes from and how to conserve it.
“To learn about how we are impacting the environment in so many different ways and how we can reduce the amount of waste and the amount of energy that we are using,” said Hain.
Hain is using the challenge as her science block so it isn’t a lot of extra work for her, but more fun for the children because it is hands on, she said.
In the process of the challenge, the classes compete to win more than 40 prizes.
One of the prizes is $3,000 for class supplies and $1,000 for charity; another prize is $1,000 for a class party.
“I am kind of looking forward to more supplies: new board games, school supplies and interesting pencils,” said Bourdon.
Some of the challenges Hain’s class has already completed include finding phantom energy - such as the energy from plugged in appliances and cell phone chargers that aren’t being used - finding out about the amount of water products produce and coming up with ways to solve energy related problems in developing countries.
“I think the energy diet is a big challenge in Canada,” said student Sylvan Ashbaugh
For student Kai Bieman, the most interesting challenge was the one where the class figured out how much water was used to make certain products.
“It takes 5060 litres of water to make [a block of] cheese,” he said.
Next week the class will be weighing the garbage in each of the school’s classrooms.
“So it does go through the whole school,” Hain said.
Another part of the project is gathering pledges to save energy from people in the community. According to several of her classmates Jasmeet Gill is a star at this. She managed to get several members of her extended family to sign up. She said her family “turns off the lights when we aren’t using them.”
For Kendra Thompson the point of the value of the challenge is clear.
“I think it is a fun way to teach people about energy,” she said.
Hain also had a class participate in the challenge in 2012. That year her class came in eighth in Canada.
The challenge runs from January to mid-April, so far 785 classes are registered.
The energy diet is presented by Shell Canada.
For more information or to pledge for Hain’s class go to energydiet.canadiangeographic.ca.
