May 4, 2026
Sundridge Centennial Public School (SCPS) students ran the show for this year’s Earth Day activities.
SCPS student parliament organized, scheduled and implemented a group activity day for the entire school, which included custom-designed bento boxes for every student.
Student parliament representatives Inuli and Sarah said students raised funds for three years to supply 130 bento boxes as a way to encourage environmentally-friendly litterless lunches.
“We hope this will reduce the amount of plastic and cardboard in the school,” Inuli said. “We're encouraging students to bring littlerless lunches to today and in the future. The boxes also have the school logo on them.”
“The fundraisers included our start of the year barbecue, Freezie Fridays and Cookie Fridays,” Sarah said.
Students organized curriculum-based outdoor activities to celebrate Earth Day, and the school was divided into groups or ‘packs’ which rotated around the school yard to each activity station. The packs are multi-grade student groups from kindergarten to Grade 8. Grade 7/8 students and parliament members prepared, organized and ran each activity in collaboration with an educator, while Grades 5-7 students who weren’t running an activity led the packs from station to station.
SCPS Principal Jill Cooper explained how each activity station connected to school curriculum.
“The scavenger hunt is focused on literacy, oral language, and communication;
sidewalk chalk drawing focuses on using various media to create visual arts,” Cooper said. “Boat Floating is a STEM activity, focused on the science of buoyancy and how technology improves floatation, such as adding wax crayon the paper helps the boat to repel water and float longer.”
Grade 6 student Bodhi said, "We put a big layer of crayon on our boat outside and it fit 102 toy blocks and kept floating. The wax keeps the paper from absorbing the water."
In a STEM-based activity, students designed their own wands at the bubble wand station and evaluated the bubbles they created. Grade 5 student Frejya said, "I liked creating the bubble wands. I made a heart shape but it didn't blow heart-shaped bubbles. They were round. When I go home, I'm going to Google why they are always round bubbles."
Seed planting focused on the science curriculum, specifically, living things and ecosystems. It was the activity that students felt most connected to the Earth Day theme.
Grade 5 student and activity leader Layla said, "We talked about Earth Day in this activity, read ‘The Lorax’ and ‘The Plants We Eat.’ Then we plant our seeds, so kids know how important it is to take care of the Earth."
Principal Cooper said that student feedback from the event was positive, and students have shown an increased level of awareness about reducing, reusing and recycling to minimize waste. Student Parliament is excited to see students make environmentally conscious decisions to further reduce the school’s environmental footprint.
