Any student can make an impact on their peers, their school and their community.
That was the message during last week's Shaw Community Week, which gave participating Classroom Champions classes the opportunity to engage their schools and communities with COVID-safe community impact projects. Thanks to Shaw Communications and Classroom Champions, participating classes received $750 grants to bring their community projects to life, ranging from card campaigns to community cleanups.
"Shaw Community Week allows participating classes to put their Classroom Champions learning into real-world practice," said Harman Dhaliwal, Manager of Business Development with Surrey Schools. "The essence of it is to do something that positively impacts the community, which ties into one of the Classroom Champions program themes."
Seventeen classes from across the district participated, including Samantha Lorber's students at Jessie Lee Elementary, who expanded their school's native pollinator garden with four garden beds and pollinator-friendly plants.
"We wanted to start a garden and dedicate it to the bees," said Lorber. "They put the soil in, put the plants in and now we have six large garden planters with exclusively native plants."
Lorber's class also incorporated technology into the design and promotion of the garden, preparing the layout of the garden in Minecraft (shown in photo at top) and sharing photos of the plants on Padlet.
"I don't think that would've happened without COVID, so it actually kind of opened up an opportunity to marry computers with nature," she said.
Strawberry Hill Elementary teacher Harvir Hothi's Grade 6 class also joined in on Shaw Community Week, painting rocks for a kindness rock garden to bring joy to the school.
"We're doing this knowing that we're spreading kindness and that if kids take one or two rocks home that that's what our purpose was," she said. "The kids are really enjoying it. They're so engaged, they know the purpose of it and they get it with the messages they're putting on them."
Other schools that participated included Bayridge Elementary, Bear Creek Elementary, Cloverdale Traditional School, Colebrook Elementary, Kirkbride Elementary and William F. Davidson Elementary.
Amid a busy school year, our teachers truly made this week a success and many were able to share the excitement on social media for friends and family to see the students' hard work and achievements. Thank you, Shaw Communications and Classroom Champions, for helping our students make an impact in their communities!
