​The City of North Vancouver's Living City Awards Program recognizes outstanding leadership in environmental sustainability in the city. This year both Ridgeway Elementary and Queen Mary Elementary received awards!

Ridgeway Elementary's Healthy Safe School Committee won the Sustainable Transportation and Awareness Living City Award. Students from Grades five to seven created a lunch time Health and Safety Committee to address safety issues regarding school travel, where over 60 per cent of students were being driven to and from school. This group of creative students took a multi-tiered approach to provide education for students including: 1) a poster campaign promoting the benefits of active school travel; 2) school challenges including a "Golden Wheelie" competition to achieve the highest active transportation participation; and 3) a short film to raise awareness for parents about the importance of sharing the road and making their school zone safe for all modes of transportation. The students took on this challenge with enthusiasm and have a strong message: change needs to happen and it starts with me.

Also at Ridgeway Elementary, Mr. Scott Gale’s Grade five class reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 31 tonnes! This astounding result won them the Climate Change Showdown Award.

In addition to these awards, Queen Mary Elementary won a Living City Grant. The school's Green Team has formed a Bike Club to help improve transportation safety around the school and support students transitioning to more active modes of transportation to commute to school. The grant will be used to organize Bike to School Weeks, as well as towards transportation planning and data collection.