The local French Catholic school board is hosting an environmental summit with Earth Day approaching.
Earth Day is April 22nd but the CECCE will bring around 250 staff and students together on April 19th for the first UNI-VERT Student Earth Summit at Saint-Marguerite-Bourgeoys in Kemptville. Superintendent Danielle Chatelain says the summit will be for students by students and is part of a larger green push from the school board.
In September CECCE announced it was partnering with Ameresco in an attempt to become carbon neutral throughout all their buildings. She says they’ll be working with the renewable energy leader to create a road map they can follow into the future. According to Chatelain students at the summit will be doing more than listening.
She says the teachers will be guiding the students through this as opposed to teaching them in a classical sense. Some of the speakers at the summit include Catherine Paquette of the World Wildlife Fund and electrical engineer Elie Khayat. Topics will range from environmentally friendly behaviours to the day to day challenges many face getting clean water.
Chatelain finished by saying they are trying to shape students into ecofriendly citizens in their day to day lives and not just during school hours.