​By Cindy Hudson, Principal and Leslie McGuire, Vice Principal/Teacher

Students and staff at Lynnmour/Xá7elcha Elementary value the opportunity to work and learn outdoors. We know how important it is to care for the environment and live in a respectful way with nature. On any given day, you can find classes out in our community, learning and engaging with our natural environment. Earth Day was no different!

Classes chose ways to connect with the land throughout the day. Mrs. McGuire’s grade 2/3 class learned a lot about plants that are native to our area, and what happens when invasive species of flora creep in. They took their research outdoors and helped by removing some plants that are negatively impacting our school grounds.

Some classes made a solid effort to clean up the area by picking up carelessly discarded materials and either disposing of them or recycling them. Both Ms. Conway’s grade 2/3 class and Mrs. Zander’s grade 3/4 class took responsibility for an area of the community that we often enjoy as a school.

Our beloved forest area and nearby Digger Park were cleaned up by keen Lynnmour/Xá7elcha students. Ms. Harrington’s Kindergarten class learned all about what is in the forest around us with a Nature Scavenger Hunt! Taking ownership and responsibility to care for the land we share is an important quality we are working on as we learn to care for each other. 

Mrs. Zander’s class took the clean up a little further! They turned some of the “recyclables” from their Maker Space creation time into toys, helping to reduce their waste and impact on the environment.

Some of our youngest learners (Kindergarten and grade 1 students in Mrs. Jensen and Mrs. Robinson’s classes) worked together to put items back into the earth, by planting some new flowers around our school gardens. Providing students the opportunity to connect with the earth and participate in beautifying our area gives them a sense of responsibility to care for our school grounds in an ongoing way. They will be able to care for these plants and watch them grow and change over the course of the spring.

Ms. Duncan’s Kindergarten/grade 1 class also connected with the earth and beautified our area by adding some painted rocks to our welcoming rock garden near the front doors of Lynnmour/Xá7elcha Elementary.

We are grateful for the energy and positivity that our students showed throughout the course of the day. We know it will transfer into how to care for our community in an ongoing way, and we are confident that these learners will continue to make a positive impact on how we take care of our Earth for years to come!