Climate Awareness Project (CAP) for Youth

Recent News

February 10, 2010

Cornwall, ON – After its very successful inaugural Climate Awareness Project (CAP) for Youth, the Cornwall Carbon Reduction Initiative (CCRI) recognized the hopes and efforts of a class of student participants from St. Anne’s Catholic School.

As a follow-up to the CAP for Youth event, schools were invited to self-evaluate their school’s environmental efforts and identify potential future projects. The submission from St. Anne's Catholic School was selected as the winning entry, and the students were treated to a celebratory party.  One student from St. Anne’s stated, "I learned about what CO2 is and now I’m going to be more aware about going on my bike instead of asking my mom to drive me somewhere."

CCRI Chair Naresh Bhargava congratulated the students for their efforts.  "It is wonderful to see the next generation taking a leadership role in reducing our community's carbon footprint.  These students have done great work, and we're pleased to be able to celebrate their success."

January 8, 2010

To ring in 2010, the Cornwall Carbon Reduction Initiative hosted the launch of its Climate Awareness Project for Youth.  Over 300 local students were able to escape from their classrooms for 2 hours to experience 9 different interactive environmental discovery stations. The event was extremely popular, and students were excited about being taught these concepts in such an engaging way! There were even some very important people in attendance, as you can see in the picture below!

Here are some of our volunteers pictured with the CAP for Youth's VIPs (from left to right): Naresh Bhargava, M.P.P. Jim Brownell, The Right Honourable John Gerretsen and Cornwall Mayor Bob Kilger

If you would like to know more about each of the 9 discovery stations that were presented at CAP for Youth, please visit our Volunteers section and click on the appropriate links, or all of them, if you're really curious!!

Background

The Climate Awareness Project (CAP) for Youth is an interactive festival aimed at providing climate change education and outreach to grade 7 & 8 students. The main objective of CAP for Youth is to provide hands-on learning opportunities with activities that directly link to Ontario school curricula. Through the project, participants will be empowered to become leaders in the community by developing and undertaking projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their homes, schools, and cities.

Participants will also have many chances to learn about how changes to local environments can impact and influence other circles of life around the world. Therefore, a general sense of environmental awareness and a stewardship ethic are also some more general goals for the initiative. 

Objectives

As participants in CAP for Youth, students will learn:

• how climate works
• the importance of the atmosphere to all life
• the carbon cycle
• the interdependence of the atmosphere, plants, trees, weather, wildlife, soil and water
• the effect of human actions on natural resources, especially finite resources
• the need for a focus on sustainable habits
• the need for responsible action