St. Patrick School winners Photo Courtesy: David Rossiter and St. Patrick Elementary

By Lara Fominoff

Grant winners

Taber’s St. Patrick Elementary School wins $20,000 in “Superpower Your School” grant

Apr 19, 2019 | 8:00 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Ten eco-conscious schools across Canada, including Taber’s St. Patrick Elementary School, have been chosen by Staples Canada and national charity, Earth Day Canada to receive $20,000 each in new technology.

The contest is held each year to mark Earth Month, and this year, five elementary and five secondary schools were the winners. St. Patrick Elementary is the only Alberta school to ever win the grant.

Students and staff were asked to demonstrate and identify areas where they can make positive environmental change within their communities.

Nicole Caputo, who teaches Grade 2/3, sent in the grant application in January.

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Nicole Caputo shows Staples’ Cordell Cumming solar power monitor- Photo Courtesy: David Rossiter and St. Patrick Elementary

She says the school had earlier received $5,000 in the “A+ for Energy” Grant from Inside Education (founded by BP Canada), and also had new solar panels installed on the roof of the school when it was built. Staff and students are now able to see the output and collection of energy from the panels and to monitor it.

“And so, I used that, and trying to bring an environmental and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program to our school. So, with the money from the A+ grant I was able to buy some technology and some really great STEM resources that every class has access to. So, the “Superpower Your School” grant, I kind of piggybacked off of the first grant, just to further our environmental initiatives at our school.”

In doing so, Caputo says they’re able to bring much more awareness of renewable energy resources to students and staff, who then teach that to their parents or others in the community.

With the $20,000, Caputo says they’ll be upgrading school iPads because they control most of the robotics the school will also be buying. They’ll also invest in renewable energy kits as teaching tools, Kinex solar powered robotics, and other science kits the students can learn how to put together and use.

Associate Principle Sean Ethier says the great thing about the equipment is that it all has multiple levels that students can learn from.

“There’s a lot of building upon knowledge. There’s definitely introductory points. And with these robots and different pieces of technology that we’re bringing, students can enter into the usage of them at many different points.”

Both Caputo and Ethier say they’re incredibly exciting to bring the new opportunities to the children, which will teach them to think critically to solve a problem, instead of just telling them what to do.

Some of the other school projects across the country included collecting 20 kg of recycling from a local creek, finding out that 60 to 80 per cent of garbage collected at one school was compostable and initiating a composting program, along with creating greenhouses and student gardens.

The “Superpower Your School” contest was launched back in 2011, and since then, has awarded more than $2 million in prizes to 90 schools.