Trafalgar students hit the streets to create storm drain pollution awareness
By Contributor
Students from Trafalgar Middle School’s Leadership class are organizing a community awareness and environmental stewardship event, to be held next Wednesday (May 21).
The event includes painting yellow fish on the storm drains in Rosemont, so that people understand where storm water goes.
The event, which is now in its second year, is an action project inspired by the Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) ‘Know Your Watershed’ Program, delivered in the fall to the grade 8 students at Trafalgar.
The students toured the City water infrastructure and learned how to perform water quality tests. They learned where their water comes from and how it is affected by human use- and that we are all part of the Columbia Basin watershed.
Now, they are leading an event to help protect water quality. The event, supported by CBT and the Friends of Kootenay Lake, will be held from 9-11:30 a.m.
If anyone would like to volunteer to help the students, please contact Monica Nissen, Know Your Watershed educator, at (250) 352-6346.
The following words are written by the Trafalgar leadership students:
The leadership class of Trafalgar Middle School is doing a project to help create awareness of storm drain pollution. On May 21st, we are going around the Rosemont neighbourhood with the South Nelson grade 4 class and the Rosemont grade 2 class.
We will be painting yellow fish next to the storm drains and distributing fish-shaped brochures so that people in our community will be informed that pollutants that end up on the streets and in these drains flow into the lake without being treated. We would really appreciate if you could be aware of the students painting as you drive by to keep everyone safe, With the help of the community, Trafalgar’s leadership class and students from the elementary schools will be creating awareness as a team to help take care of our lake. It is our job to keep the lake clean. If the lake is healthy, so are the fish, plants and us. — Elaine Weiland, Grade 8, Trafalgar Middle School
