According to T4 Education, a global platform for educators and schools, one of the world’s best schools may be right here in Canada.
École Secondaire Lacombe Composite High School in Lacombe, Alberta, is one of 10 finalists (and the only North American school still in the running) for the World’s Best School Prize for Environmental Action. The prize recognizes the importance of youth, students, and schools in taking climate action and inspiring solutions at home and worldwide.
Key to the nomination is the school’s EcoVision club. The club started in 2006 with a student-led solar panel project to take the school off the electricity grid. Over time, the energy for the project spread to the whole school, and they developed a 6kW solar array.
A fire broke out on the school roof in 2010 and destroyed the solar project. Still, the students rebounded to create new initiatives: an outdoor classroom, a near net-zero 850 ft tall geodesic tropical greenhouse, a 2-acre garden that eventually produced two hundred fruit trees, fifty vegetable beds (used in the food and culinary education program), a composting system, an aquaponics system, goats, and a beekeeping programme with eight hives. The students also sell fruit and produce to restaurants in Lacombe.
Catherine Fisher, blogger
