News & Events

Environmental awareness raised at Elmwood Eco Summit

On Thursday, October 28^th, 2010, students from 15 Ottawa high schools came together at Elmwood School for the inaugural Ottawa Eco Summit, a new initiative designed to bring teenagers from environment clubs across the city together for a collaborative conference to discuss environmental plans for the upcoming year. 

Francesca Schembri, a Grade 11 student and head of the Environment Council at Elmwood, developed the idea of the Eco Summit over the past year. She realized that teenagers have been exposed to messages about conservation and the environment their entire lives, but the standard messages have become so commonplace that they don’t really resonate with teens. In addition, teens are very busy and have many activities to choose from in high school, and, as a result, environment clubs often don’t get as much attention as they should. Her idea was to create an Eco Summit that would have the following goals:

• To reenergize environmental awareness in high schools through new approaches to communicating issues, created by teens for teens 
• To create a forum through which teens can work collaboratively and collectively make a bigger impact both within their own schools and in Ottawa, and
• To foster a greater sense of community among and support environment clubs in Ottawa high school.

The Eco Summit was organized and run by student volunteers at Elmwood School. The day began with an inspiring presentation from social entrepreneur and film maker, Elia Saikaly, and included a panel of Environmental Studies students from Carleton University who provided insight into pursuing environmental studies beyond high school. The Carleton students also served as facilitators when Eco Summit participants broke into small discussion groups to brainstorm and come up with plans of action to get their peers more involved in protecting the environment. They voted on the top initiatives that will be the focus of their efforts this year, including getting composters for all high schools, promoting the installation of solar panels at the schools, and raising funds and awareness by holding a coffee house open to students from all of the schools. The students will stay connected and work on these plans via networking on a shared website and forum, panels and committees.   

Eco Summit 2010 is the first step in the initiative to increase environmental awareness among teens. Francesca is already thinking ahead to Eco Summit 2011. She points out that “The power of one is incredible, but when people come together to share ideas, they can change the world. Teens need to remember that they are the leaders of tomorrow, but they are also the leaders of today.”

Click here for photos from the event.

Click here to listen to Francesca's radio interview on CKCU.

Watch the promo video: