Rainbow District School Board hosts annual EcoSummit

Students from Rainbow District School Board took over Laurentian University’s Fraser Auditorium on Monday for the annual EcoSummit. (Lyndsay Aelick/CTV News)

Students from Rainbow District School Board took over Laurentian University’s Fraser Auditorium on Monday for the annual EcoSummit.

The initiative is part of the environmental education committee’s efforts to encourage young people to care about the world in which they live.

“It’s been a tremendous success over the last several years,” said Ryan Lafraniere, committee chair and principal of Lockerby Composite School.

“It started very small, with grades 7 to 12 students participating. We’ve now moved that to Grade 6, as well … We have about 350 to 400 students here at the event.”

Keynote speaker

Adam Shoalts, a professional explorer and national bestselling author, was the keynote speaker. He spoke about his latest adventure, a 3,400-kilometre solo journey from Lake Erie to the Arctic.

“It seemed like I was among kindred spirits,” Shoalts said.

“They were extremely enthusiastic. We had a whole forest of hands go up there. But I was hoping that if I (could) inspire them to care a little bit more about going out into the wild, then you’re already planting the seed for environmental stewardship.”

The theme for the annual event was, ‘Our land, our forests, our life.’

“We’re hoping that all of our students become inspired and empowered to take all of their learnings (and) go back to their school communities and implement some positive change,” Lafraniere said.

Students also heard what other schools in the board are doing, as well as participated in workshops from yoga to invertebrate identification and food forests to discovering the story of Junction Creek.

This is the third year for the EcoSummit and officials said plans are already underway for next year.

To learn more, click here.