PIERSON, Man. – Carly Thompson was at a place last week where you would least expect to find students during the summer holidays.
The Grade 9 student went back to school, volunteering her time to prune trees, mow grass and water outdoor plants.
For her, it was time well spent.
“At the end of the day, I look around and see what I’ve done and feel good about it,” she said while clipping the lower branches from a row of poplar trees at the school in Pierson.
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Thompson is a member of Manitoba’s environmental youth corps, a group of teenagers and young adults working to improve the environment and appearance of their communities.
Her father, the principal at Pierson School, encourages student involvement in the program. Leading a tour around the school grounds, Greg Thompson pointed out the flowers and shrubs that have been planted by young people during the past few years.
The grounds north of the school were once barren, he said. Lilac bushes, spruce, poplars and flowers all grow there now.
On the east and south sides of the school, a similar transformation has taken place. Trees, shrubs and perennial flowers make the school more inviting and less institutional.
Walking paths, built by the young people, now extend throughout the school grounds.
“The trees make it look a lot better,” said Shannon Tingey, a college student who was hired this summer to co-ordinate the environmental youth corps program at Pierson.
“The flower gardens in front of the school do a lot too.”
Two years ago, the environmental youth corps took on an extra challenge here.
Members visited a cattle pasture south of town where streambank erosion was a concern. The youths were asked to assess the problems, research solutions and recommend improvements.
“They were really a good group,” said Glen Campbell of the West Souris River Conservation District. “They came up with a lot of good suggestions.”
The students suggested sloping a stretch of the streambank that had been sheared off by erosion. And they recommended building up two cattle crossings with dirt and rocks to stem erosion. Giving cattle a source of clean water away from the stream was also proposed.
All the recommendations were acted upon, with members of the youth corps sharing the work.
Two of those youths returned to the pasture last week. During a stroll along the stream’s edge, they were struck by the improvements.
The bank that had been sheared away now sloped toward the water, protected by mature grasses and a band of rocks along its lower edge. Cattle watered at a large trough, which was placed several paces from the stream’s edge. The stream and its embankments were partitioned from the pasture with electric fencing.
“I didn’t really think there’d be any change,” said Mary-Anne Neumann, a Grade 12 student. “But it’s cool now.”
Amber Trott, also a Grade 12 student, was equally enthused. She values the lessons learned from the project. It was a shared effort between the conservation district, the environmental youth corps and the school’s horticulture program.
“It was good to have a hands-on part of the (horticulture) course rather than just sitting in the class learning about it,” Trott said.
The province each year grants funding to environmental youth corps programs such as the one at Pierson. The money is used mainly to hire co-ordinators to oversee programs in dozens of communities.
It’s a small investment that can translate into big returns for the environment and participating communities.
The program at Pierson helped guide at least two Pierson students onto career paths, Thompson said.
“It definitely is something that I hope will be continued. The bang for the buck is really tremendous.”
