4 Rs Win Green Prize for Ottawa Grade 5 Class

December 8, 2008

A group of Ottawa fifth graders has won an environmental award for reducing, reusing and recycling — and some persuasive 'riting.

Twenty-nine students in Michelle Richardson's Grade 5 class at Connaught Public School received a plaque and gift bags Thursday after winning Canadian Tire's first Green School Challenge Award. The class will also receive a pizza party and trees for their school yard.

To enter the contest, they worked together to draft a four-page letter about green initiatives at their school, Richardson said.

"One of them, I taught him last year and he said, 'why don't we use some of the persuasive writing techniques we learned last year?'" she recalled.

The students described how they grew plants in the classroom and sold them as a fundraiser last year. They spent the $300 they earned on shrubs and trees and planted them in a garden in the school yard, which was once just dirt and sod. The students are also trying to bring litterless lunches, composting and recycling as much as they can.

Richardson said the contest taught the students a good lesson.

"Now they see the fruits of their labour — a real writing task that showed them real results."

Ten-year-old Cody Amaro convinced many of his classmates to wear green to celebrate their win on Thursday.

Student Mohamed Islam said he feels good about being a role model for the whole school.

"Because we made a good impression and now we're like the green class," he said.

Alicia Haies was already thinking about how to use her prize to be even greener.

"The bags that we got, I might bring it to the store for my parents and they could use it instead of plastic bags," she said.

Schools in Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg and Toronto also won awards.