Canada’s Coolest Class
Mr. Belsey’s grade Six Class at RancheView School
Hello!
We are students in Mr. Belsey’s grade six class at RancheView School in Cochrane, Alberta. Through our teacher’s guidance using the Alberta Science Curriculum, we learned about the critical importance of trees to ourselves and all life on our planet. We learned that many trees are under pressure from our changing world. We had many class discussions about what we could do in our community to bring about change. We decided to take action locally with the hope that if other classes in Canada and beyond could do the same, we could make a difference globally.
After reading The Lorax by Dr. Seuss in class, we decided we would create a Website, www.wespeakforthetrees.ca, to use our voices as young Canadians to speak on behalf of trees, by celebrating all of the wonderful things that trees do to make life better on Earth and take action to protect our trees and forests.
One action we took was to make a presentation to the Mayor of Cochrane, Jeff Genung. Mayor Genung applauded our efforts was very supportive, encouraged us to present our ideas to the Town Council of Cochrane.
Our ideas:
- Direct Town of Cochrane staff to map out areas where students would be able to plant trees on, or near their school grounds and communicate that information to RockyView Maintenance, Grounds and Caretaking as well as RockyView Schools.
- Declare the White Spruce as the “Official Tree of Cochrane”
- Declare the first Saturday in June annually as “Arbor Day” in Cochrane.
- Town Council would write a letter of support to the Prime Minister of Canada for our idea of a “National Arbor Day” (the Spring date for which can be determined by the Government of Canada)
We plan to follow this up by planting trees on, or near our school during the first week of June. Spray Lake Sawmills, a Local business has agreed to provide us with the tree saplings and show us how to plant a tree properly.
Please join us!
