Fortified locking bicycle lights mounted to a bike. (Photo: Richard Masoner / Flickr)
With the days getting shorter, B!KE: the Peterborough Community Bike Shop wants to help keep cyclists safe with two “B!KE Bright” outreach events in October.
Staff and volunteers of the local biking organization will by offering free bicycle lights and tips about how to be more visible on the road while riding at the two events, which take place from 5 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 18th at the Peterborough Public Library and on Tuesday, October 25th on the Rotary Trail near the London Street foot bridge.
“Cycling commuters and recreational bike riders can face additional hazards in the fall as daylight hours get shorter,” says Tahirih Rowshan-Lips, B!KE’s community education coordinator, in a media release. “One of the most important ways to stay safe is to make sure you can be seen by drivers.”
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Cyclists in Ontario are legally required to have front and rear lights on from a half hour before sunset to a half hour after sunrise. Rowshan-Lips recommends cyclists have a working set of lights at all times.
“It’s easy to get caught out on your bike past dark, especially in the fall and winter,” she said. “It’s in every rider’s best interest to have the equipment on hand to stay safe.”
In addition to giving away lights and offering other ideas for staying visible, the “B!KE Bright” events will include basic bike maintenance checks, help with route planning, and information about cycling programs and resources in the city.
The bike light giveaways are sponsored by the Peterborough Bicycle Advisory Committee as part of the volunteer committee’s education efforts around safe cycling in the city.
Peterborough theatre artist and writer Kate Story reading from her young adult novel "Urchin" during a book launch event at The Theatre On King in fall 2021. "Urchin" is one of the five finalists in the English language young people's literature category of the 2022 Governor General's Literary Awards. (Photo: Andy Carroll)
A book by Peterborough theatre artist and writer Kate Story has been named a finalist for the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Awards.
The Canada Council for the Arts announced the 70 finalists in 14 categories in English and French on Wednesday (October 12), with Story’s young adult novel Urchin one of the five finalists in the English language young people’s literature category.
As a finalist, Story receives $1,000. The winners of each category, to be announced on November 16, will each receive $25,000, with the publisher of each winning book receiving $3,000 to promote the book.
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Published in fall 2021 by Running the Goat Books and Broadsides, Urchin is a historical fantasy set in early 20th-century Newfoundland that tells the tale of 13-year-old Dorthea, who adopts a new identity as a boy named Jack to go undercover and investigate the activities of Italian scientist Marconi, who has arrived in St. John’s to receive the first wireless trans-Atlantic radio signal. The story also delves into the relationship between Dor and her mother, Dor’s love for her friend Clare, and mysterious fairies known as the Little Strangers.
In a 2021 interview with Lynette Adams for CBC News, Story credits Marnie Parsons of Running the Goat for the initial motivation for Urchin.
“She said, very specifically, she wanted me to write young adult fantasy, set in Newfoundland, historical, with fairies, and I was thrilled,” said Story, who spent her childhood in St. John’s in the 1970s. “I think I took a lot from my own life and transplanted it back 70 years, to be Dor.”
Kate Story’s “Urchin” is available as a paperback from Running the Goat Books and Broadsides and at major book retailers.
“(I) never thought I’d see the day when a book featuring a misfit genderqueer kid from the Southside Road would be a finalist for a big award,” Story wrote on Facebook after finding out Urchin was named a Governor General’s Literary Award finalist.
Story has little time to bask in the glow of her latest accomplishment, however. Not only is she director, dramaturge, and project manager for Sarah McNeilly’s sold-out Titty Cakes: A Recipe for Radical Acceptance running from October 19th to 23rd, but her own new performance piece Anxiety is set to premiere at The Theatre On King for a seven-performance run beginning November 24th.
Presented by Public Energy Performing Arts, Anxiety is Story’s retelling of the Old English epic poem Beowulf. She skilfully weaves the poem into a humorous, poignant, and honest exploration of her own story growing up the as daughter of a famed Newfoundland lexicographer.
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Story’s father George, who passed away in 1994, pioneered the study of Newfoundland history, culture, language, and literature, including through his work on the Dictionary of Newfoundland English.
In Anxiety, Story examines the history of the English language and the roots of white supremacy as she seeks to understand her place in a modern world seemingly gone mad.
Kate Story performing in her new work “Anxiety,” which is set to run for seven performances at The Theatre on King in Peterborough November 24 to December 1, 2022. (Photo: Andy Carroll)
Trent University and the Joyce Family Foundation announced the $2.5 million Joyce Family Foundation Bursary Endowment Fund on October 14, 2022. The bursary will be available to four undergraduate students in any field of study per year with preference given to students who come from the City or County of Peterborough, Durham Region, and Haliburton County. (Photo courtesy of Trent University)
A foundation established by late Tim Hortons co-founder Ron Joyce has donated $2.5 million for Trent University to help students who face socio-economic barriers to post-secondary education,
Trent University announced the Joyce Family Foundation Bursary Endowment Fund on Friday (October 14).
The university’s largest-ever endowed bursary will be available to any undergraduate student in any field of study, with preference given to students who come from the City or County of Peterborough, Durham Region, and Haliburton County.
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“This gift, which creates our largest fund for student aid, greatly enhances Trent University’s ability to support students who might not otherwise have the opportunity to pursue post-secondary education,” said Trent University president and vice-chancellor Dr. Leo Groarke.
“We thank the Joyce Family Foundation for changing lives and believing in local students who need a helping hand to pursue their dreams.”
The Joyce Family Foundation Bursary Endowment Fund fund will provide annual bursaries of up to $5,000 for four students per year, renewable up to a maximum of four years, to be applied against the cost of tuition and fees and educational expenses. Each successful applicant will be required to work with a mentor in an extracurricular activity throughout their program.
Joyce Family Foundation executive director Maureen O’Neill speaks at the announcement of the $2.5 million Joyce Family Foundation Bursary Endowment Fund at Trent University on October 14, 2022. (Photo courtesy of Trent University)
Formerly known as the Joyce Foundation, the Joyce Family Foundation is a private foundation created by Ron Joyce, best known as the legendary Canadian entrepreneur who, in 1964, invested in the first Tim Hortons donut shop in Hamilton, Ontario and then grew the business into one of the most successful food service chains in the world.
A high-school dropout who became a billionaire, Joyce’s philanthropic efforts were motivated by the own adversity he faced in his own childhood and youth. He founded the Tim Horton Children’s Foundation, which sends underprivileged kids to camp each year, before establishing his own foundation whose primary focus is to provide access to education for children and youth with significant financial need or facing other socio-economic barriers to success.
“Ron Joyce believed in hard work and the power of education to open doors and help meet potential,” said Maureen O’Neill, executive director of the Joyce Family Foundation. “This gift is part of the Board’s commitment to Ron Joyce’s legacy and genuine belief in youth to bring their talents and contributions into Canadian society.”
Volunteers with Creating Space Community Arts Studio in Peterborough have stitched and embroidered four fully lined bags using recycled burlap from the stage of Neil Young's December 2017 "Home Town" concert at Omemee's Corontation Hall. The bags, which also feature the image from the stage backdrop, will be auctioned off on November 4 and 5, 2022 to raise funds for the non-profit organization's local arts initiative. (Photo: Creating Space / Instagram)
It was huge news for local music fans when Canadian icon Neil Young announced in late 2017 he would be returning to his childhood hometown of Omemee, Ontario to perform a solo acoustic concert.
Taking place at Omemee’s Coronation Hall, Young’s by-invitation-only “Home Town” concert was livestreamed to fans both in Canada and around the world on December 1, 2017.
Now you can own an authentic memento of that memorable concert, thanks to Creating Space Community Arts Studio in Peterborough.
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The non-profit organization will be auctioning off four fully lined, hand-crafted bags that have been expertly stitched and embroidered by Creating Space volunteers using recycled burlap from the concert stage and decorated with the image from the stage backdrop.
The silent auction takes place from noon to 6 p.m. on Friday, November 4th and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, November 5th in the space that Creating Space shares with the Artisan Centre Peterborough in the lower level of Peterborough Square in downtown Peterborough. Work from other artists will also be available in the silent auction.
According to Creating Space, Young himself has endorsed the auction of the bags in support of the organization’s local arts initiative.
Neil Young performing at Coronation Hall in Omemee, Ontario, on December 1, 2017 as part of his “Home Town” concert that was livestreamed in Canada and around the world. (kawarthaNOW screenshot)
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Omemee is the “town in north Ontario” in Neil Young’s 1967 song “Helpless” and it’s where he spent the formative years of his childhood. The Young family moved to Omemee at the end of August 1949, when Neil was almost four years old. He lived in Omemee for four years (it was where he contracted polio, during the 1951 epidemic) until 1953, when his family moved to Winnipeg.
In late 2020, Young and his wife Darryl Hannah moved from Colorado to a 116-year-old cottage on a lake near Omemee, which they renovated and winterized and where they stayed for six months during the pandemic.
It’s unknown if Young and Hannah are still living there but, on the Thanksgiving long weekend, the couple was spotted at the Norwood Fair and then later in Peterborough.
Pictured in a promotional photo for his latest album "Not Earth", Toronto-based Sing Leaf (a.k.a David Como) performs his dreamy blend of folk-rock and psychedelic pop at Jethro's Bar + Stage on Friday, October 14 in a show with Joyful Joyful and Twin Rains. (Photo: Sing Leaf / Facebook)
Every Thursday, we publish live music events at pubs and restaurants in Peterborough and the greater Kawarthas region based on information that venues provide to us directly or post on their website or social media channels. Here are the listings for the week of Thursday, October 13 to Wednesday, October 19.
If you’re a pub or restaurant owner and want to be included in our weekly listings, please email our nightlifeNOW editor at nightlife@kawarthanow.com. For concerts and live music events at other venues, check out our Concerts & Live Music page.
Author and poet Margaret Atwood with directors and producers Nancy Lang and Peter Raymont during the filming of "Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power" at the York Club in Toronto on January 30, 2019. (Photo: Peter Bregg)
The Lakefield Literary Festival is presenting a public screening of an award-winning documentary on Canadian literary giant Margaret Atwood in November as a fundraiser for the annual festival, which is returning in 2023 after a three-year absence due to the pandemic.
Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power will be shown in the Bryan Jones Theatre at Lakefield College School at 7 p.m. on Sunday, November 13th. Tickets are $15 in advance at lakefieldliteraryfestival.com or at the door. Proof of vaccination will be required at the door, with masking optional.
Produced by White Pine Pictures, the 2019 documentary was directed and produced by Peter Raymont and Nancy Lang, who will be attending the screening to introduce the film and will also be available following the screening for a question-and-answer session.
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Named after a line from the poem “Spelling” in Atwood’s 1981 True Stories collection, the documentary sees a film crew follow the then-80-year-old Atwood and her now-late partner Graeme Gibson over the course of a year, as they jet to speaking engagements around the world, take a family holiday, and visit the set of The Handmaid’s Tale — the Emmy award-winning Hulu series based on Atwood’s book of the same name that made her even more of a household name — where Atwood meets with lead actor Elisabeth Moss and Ane Crabtree, the designer of the blood-red robes now worn by protesters around the world.
The film delves into Atwood’s backstory, including her childhood spent in the Canadian wilderness, her early days at Harvard and as a poet, and how she came to meet Gibson and write The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood is seen working on the final chapters of The Testaments — the highly anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale that went on to win the 2019 Booker Prize — on planes, on boats, and on the road. Atwood’s closest friends and family share stories, as does the author herself.
Atwood’s major works are also explored throughout the film, revealing the personal and societal factors that informed her writing, with actor Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law) reading Atwood’s poetry and prose.
VIDEO: “Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power” trailer
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Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power has won numerous awards, including the 2021 People’s Choice Award at the Hudson Film Festival and 2020 Best Documentary Feature at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival.
Originally established in 1995 as a celebration of Margaret Laurence, who lived in Lakefield until her death in 1987 — and also commemorating Lakefield’s rich literary heritage with two of Canada’s most important 19th-century writers, sisters Catharine Parr Traill and Susanna Moodie, having lived in the area — the Lakefield Literary Festival showcases Canadian authors and promotes the joy of reading and writing among children and adults.
The festival celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2019, and has been on hiatus since then due to the pandemic. It will return in July 2023.
Rose Terry's business Nectar Co. creates custom keepsake jewellery using items people want to preserve and hold close to them, including breast milk, cremation ashes, and more. (Photo courtesy of Rose Terry)
After nearly a decade of supporting entrepreneurs, Peterborough’s Rose Terry has become one herself — officially launching her unique keepsake jewellery business Nectar Co.
Nectar Co. creates hand-crafted custom pieces from any items that people want to preserve and hold close to them, including breast milk, cremation ashes, and more.
Terry is the co-founder of 100 Women Peterborough and a jewellery hobbyist with a background in the arts. Nectar Co. grew out of her own motherhood and breastfeeding journey, combined with the recent loss of a close friend, while she was on maternity leave from her role as marketing manager and senior innovation specialist at the Innovation Cluster Peterborough and Kawarthas.
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Terry has already been selling Nectar Co. preservation jewellery to clients across Canada, with dozens of pre-orders since soft launching her business in July. Most of her pre-orders are for breast milk jewellery.
“Many people ask me if mothers actually send their breast milk and I answer absolutely and happily,” Terry explains. “It may come as a shock to some, but mothers will keep their ‘liquid gold’ in the freezer for years not wanting to throw it out but not knowing what to do with it, and when they hear what I do, they are excited to be able to preserve it to honour their journey.”
While breast milk jewellery remains a niche product, including in Canada, Terry points to a company in India that offers breast milk preservation jewellery and is projecting $2.5 million in sales in 2023.
While most of Nectar Co.’s pre-orders to date have been for breast milk jewellery, Nectar Co. will also offer the professional preservation of other very personal items, such as loved ones’ ashes, hair, placenta, umbilical cord, dried flowers, and even soil from a special place. (Photo courtesy of Rose Terry)
“For one of the most natural things we can do as mothers, unfortunately breastfeeding / chestfeeding is not as culturally accepted in Canada as it should be,” Terry says. “So much pride is taken in this experience and it is important to celebrate our bodies more for the beautiful, nurturing and hard work that they do. Breastfeeding is about so much more than just feeding your child.”
Along with breast milk, Nectar Co. will also offer the professional preservation of other very personal items, such as loved ones’ ashes, hair, placenta, umbilical cord, dried flowers (from a wedding or funeral, for example), and even soil from a special place.
Clients are able to choose from Terry’s carefully crafted collections and add design notes to make each piece unique to them based on their personal story and individual taste. Once an order is placed, clients will label and mail in their inclusions, such as breast milk or cremation ashes, to be preserved and included in the custom piece.
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Terry says the entire professional preservation and jewellery making process from beginning to end typically takes between 12 to 16 weeks.
“We know that our jewellery will become one of the most important pieces that our clients own and can even be passed down in the family,” Terry says. “The process of keepsake jewellery is very unique and intentional from beginning to end. It is cathartic to gather a loved one’s cremation ashes, for example, and package them to be made into jewellery.”
Terry plans to host pop-up shops in the future where clients will be able to have a complimentary design consultation, drop off their inclusions, and have their rings sized in person.
For more information about Nectar Co., visit nectarco.ca.
Nectar Co. founder Rose Terry is also the co-founder of the group philanthropy organization 100 Women Peterborough, the recipient of a Peterborough-Kawartha Women’s Leadership Award, a recipient of the Peterborough and Kawartha Chamber of Commerce’s 4-Under-40 Profile, and a nominee for Inspire: The Women’s Portrait Project. (Photo courtesy of Rose Terry)
The Sustainable Technologies Green Parking Lot program at the Living City Campus at the Kortright Centre for Conservation in Vaughan is setting an example of various practices that can be used to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional asphalt parking lots. The parking lot design features several low impact development practices, including permeable pavement, rain gardens, bioretention areas, and infiltration trenches. (Photo: Toronto Area Conservation Authority)
Plaza parking lots, love them or not, are all around us. They are the places where all drivers become pedestrians, and that in-between space can be filled with emotions ranging from gratification to frustration.
Each week, GreenUP provides a story related to the environment. This week’s column is by GreenUP’s NeighbourHOODs program.
The ability of unused or less-frequented lots to fill in gaps in cities means that they hold great opportunities as vibrant quasi-public spaces. While car parking needs are still high in our community, people are increasingly using active transportation to get to their destinations, which may mean using these spaces in creative ways.
As we transition into a society that favours active transportation methods like biking, walking, and rolling, parking lots can become areas that accommodate many transport needs in the community.
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Not only that, but sustainable urban design can help make the journey across lots to be more enjoyable — turning those parking lot ‘woes’ into ‘wows’. Individuals and organizations can help transform cities in three easy ways:
1. Reflect on personal and community use of parking lots
Parking lots are not just spaces where you leave your tires, wheels, or footprints. They are transition spaces: destinations between points A to B. The space between your car and your end goal — whether it is stores, businesses, events, or centres — can be filled with just as much infrastructure to benefit your journey.
How do you use a parking lot? Note where you park your transportation tools and whether they require charging ports, road lanes, or repair stations. Do you have accessibility needs that are met or ignored? In terms of aesthetics and amenities, begin noticing whether the lots you prefer have certain design elements, like benches, gardens, rest facilities, or artwork.
Adding rain gardens and even aesthetic design elements like benches can help transform a parking lot from grey to green. (Photo: GreenUP)
It doesn’t take too much Googling to realize that lots can drive sustainable economic development for local businesses. The economic benefits of transforming a parking lot can be substantial, as fresh lot designs can increase curb appeal for businesses, decrease urban sprawl, and increase foot traffic to retail outlets, and can even decrease expenses for public and privately owned spaces.
Your experience in parking lots is valued — and places like Peterborough have lots of room to adapt their spaces.
Reflection while in these spaces can help you get a better grasp of how spaces can be improved.
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2. Expose yourself to the world of green infrastructure
Some parking lots in Ontario were designed decades ago to accommodate many vehicles of many sizes. As driving habits change, so do the accommodation needs for parking lots. Urban design that looks at the goals of the future, in addition to the needs of the present, are those that contribute to more sustainable communities.
Parking lots aren’t disappearing anytime soon. Sometimes change is as simple as creatively reimagining unused space — for example, creating accessible pathways with beautiful native plants, changing light fixtures to energy-efficient models, or adding rest stations.
Parking lots are static, but they can be filled with life. Installing biodiverse gardens can improve the curb appeal of lots, increase wildlife, and can reduce physiological stress by diverting your attention from the frustration of parking. (Photo:: GreenUP)
Going from ‘grey to green’ doesn’t have to be an individual research project. There are many innovative ways that green organizations, local businesses, and community members have transformed their city infrastructure collaboratively.
Groups like GreenUP, through partners such as Green Communities Canada and diverse community support, have been transforming asphalt-heavy areas of Peterborough through the Depave Paradise program since 2014. Creating retrofit demonstrations, creating biodiverse greenspaces, and advocating for bike infrastructure continues to be the goal of many community members, organizations and businesses.
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3. Share your voice
If you’re not about heavy-lifting, engineering or design, then transforming parking lots can be done with your voice.
Gathering feedback from on-the-ground public engagement opportunities, such as pop-up installations and face-to-face workshops, can help environmental organizations gather qualitative data about citizens’ values that can be used to help re-design cities.
For GreenUP’s NeighbourHOODs, this means finding “parking lot paradise” in Peterborough/Nogojiwanong.
What can you imagine for the parking lot in Market Plaza in downtown Peterborough? (Photo: GreenUP)
From October 16th to 18th, lend your voice at “In Search of Parking Lot Paradise” — a three-day pop-up engagement event in Market Plaza on George Street in downtown Peterborough where community members collaborate on a vision of a reimagined plaza parking lot.
By encouraging conversations about green infrastructure, accessibility, inclusion, design, and innovation in fun and interactive ways, we aim to — at least for a short time — turn a parking lot from grey to green.
For more information about events and partners that will be at Peterborough’s latest Parking Lot Paradise, visit greenup.on.ca/parking-lot-paradise or email Laura Keresteszi, Program Coordinator of NeighbourHOOD programs, at laura.keresztesi@greenup.on.ca.
Support for this project was provided by the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario). Through the My Main Street Community Activator program, the Canadian Urban Institute is delivering Government of Canada support across southern Ontario for local community placemaking projects, including events, activities and community enhancements designed to draw visitors and increase local vibrancy.
Peterborough-Kawartha MP Michelle Ferreri speaking during a debate on an opposition motion for tax reduction on gasoline and diesel in the House of Commons on March 22, 2022. (kawarthaNOW screenshot of CPAC video)
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has named Peterborough-Kawartha MP Michelle Ferreri as the opposition critic for the federal minister of families, children, and social development.
Poilievre released the list of his “shadow cabinet” on Wednesday (October 12), naming 52 ministerial critics and 37 associate critics.
“I am very honoured to be appointed as Shadow Minister of Families, Children and Social Development under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre,” Ferreri said in a statement. “This is a very significant file for Canadians at all stages in their life, from early childhood to Canadians collecting EI, to seniors collecting OAS, CPP and GIS.”
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Under former Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole, Ferreri was the shadow minister for tourism and focused her efforts on criticizing wait times for passports as well as the federal government’s ArriveCAN app.
Ferreri said in her statement she “will work to hold the Minister to account to ensure essential services like getting a passport in a timely manner are met.”
Karina Gould is the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. Although Gould is responsible for Service Canada, which provides passports to Canadians, her primary mandate is to deliver a national early learning and child care system (including for Indigenous families). Ferreri did not mention child care in her statement.
Gould is also responsible for implementing the Community Services Recovery Fund to help charities and non-profit organizations adapt and modernize as they recover from the pandemic and implementing the Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative to enhance the capacity and effectiveness of Black-led and Black-serving organizations,
“We need a government that is not just talking and virtue signalling but acting and delivering on their mandates,” Ferreri said in her statement.
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Ferreri’s appointment as shadow minister for families and children will likely raise eyebrows among her critics. In March, Ferreri came under fire after she called herself “a single mom with six children” in the House of Commons. Ferreri is mother to three teenage children from a relationship with her former spouse, and is currently in a relationship with Ryan Moore, who is father to three children from a relationship with his former spouse.
Other MPs in the greater Kawarthas region are also included in Poilievre’s shadow cabinet, although two have lesser roles than they did under former Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole.
Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MP Jamie Schmale retains his previous role as shadow minister for Indigenous services.
Northumberland-Peterborough South MP Philip Lawrence, previously shadow minister for the Federal Economic Development Agency for southern Ontario, is now associate shadow minister for finance and middle-class prosperity (tax reform).
Hastings-Lennox and Addington MP Shelby Kramp-Neuman, previously shadow minister for seniors, is now associate shadow minister for national defence (recruitment and retention).
Some of the students in the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board's Youth Leadership in Sustainability Program who helped install a rain garden at Beavermead Campbround's new gatehouse in Peterborough. (Photo courtesy of Otonabee Conservation)
There’s now a rain garden at Beavermead Campground’s new gatehouse, thanks to Otonabee Conservation and students in the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board’s Youth Leadership in Sustainability Program.
Installed on Wednesday (October 12), the rain garden includes over 100 native trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers, including native species of purple coneflower, big bluestem, red osier dogwood, and black-eyed Susan which will provide habitat for pollinators. They are also drought tolerant and will therefore require minimal maintenance and watering.
Otonabee Conservation owns and operates Beavermead Campground, located at 2011 Ashburnham Drive, which provides camping services from May to October.
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“This project will create a welcoming entrance to Beavermead Campground and highlight best practices for habitat enhancement and water conservation,” says Otonabee Conservation CAO and secretary-treasurer Janette Loveys Smith in a media release. “Working together with City of Peterborough and our community partners demonstrates our collective commitment to climate change adaptation and watershed health.”
With support from local community partners at GreenUP, the rain garden was designed to capture runoff from the roof of the new gatehouse. Rain will then be temporarily stored in the garden during a storm event and will slowly drain away reducing flooding, filtering pollutants, and channelling runoff into the ground.
The demonstration rain garden will provide opportunities for visitors to the park and campground “to see how beautiful native species are” and to learn more about the benefits of water conservation, according to the media release.
“In the face of the climate and biodiversity crisis, it’s so important that students have opportunities for hands-on activities like this where they are engaged in constructive, restorative, solutions-based work and can connect this positive experience with classroom learning,” says Cam Douglas, teacher and Youth Leadership in Sustainability Program coordinator.
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