The Green Room

When it came time for January’s Walk-to-School day at L’Ecole Aubrey Elementary School in Burnaby, BC, event coordinator Sheryl Pietramala thought of polar bears. Much like the popular "Polar Bear Swims" events on New Year’s Day, naming the school’s mid-January effort amid frigid temperatures "Polar Bear Walk-to-School" seemed fitting. As Sheryl researched the polar bear, she realized that leaving cars behind for the day would help reduce the school’s carbon footprint and in turn do some good for the polar bears’ habitat. Sheryl shares her planning and creating awareness strategy:

The staff, parent volunteers and students at Aubrey embraced this event with a lot of enthusiasm. We had "hand-stamp" stations at four of our surrounding street corners where students who walked to school would get their hand stamped. They would continue to the front of the school to the "check-in" station where we had cans for cash donations which would go towards a symbolic polar bear adoption through World Wildlife Federation-Canada (WWF). For every $1.00 donated, the student would receive a free Burnaby Express Junior A hockey game ticket. And thanks to Polar Bears International (PBI), every child who walked to school received four mini-posters with beautiful pictures and information about the magnificent polar bear.

Each class with 100% participation would receive the coveted "Golden Shoe Award" (our school trophy with a golden shoe on it). All students who walked to school had their name entered for a class prize draw that included research materials donated by the David Suzuki Foundation outlining other wildlife species in need of conservation. There were also two teacher prize draws that included a copy of The David Suzuki Foundation’s report on provincial and federal protections for the bear, titled Canada’s Polar Bear: Falling Through the Cracks? and Tundra Buggy Adventure coffee mugs.

During the week leading up to our event, we had a contest where staff and students had to answer four questions regarding the polar bear on a ballot to encourage everyone to do a little research on the polar bear. Ballots were entered for a prize draw for the book "Salmon Forest " written by David Suzuki and Sarah Ellis, which was graciously autographed by David Suzuki himself.

Our school participation rate was 88% (up by 2% from our November Walk-to-School) and we had two classes with 100% participation! My goal was to raise awareness of our carbon footprint and how it can affect global warming with hope that students would walk to school more often. Using polar bears to illustrate the affects of global warming made it easy for students to understand the challenges nature faces.

I knew my goal had been met when our principal, Mr. Bortolussi, received the email below from a parent:

Dear Mr. Bortolussi,

I’m writing this Thank You note not because my son, Shaw-Ern, won one of the prize draws, but because Walk-to-School Day was such a meaningful and well-organized event…. He was so thrilled that he and Daddy walked all the way to school together, he had to call his grandparents to report it. Now that he knows that he CAN walk to school, he wants to try to do it again…. A BIG thank you to all the organizers…. Perhaps another similar event early summer when the weather gets better? He now wants to try riding his bike to school!

Angeline Seel