A group of grade 6 students from Huband Park School in Comox Valley presented at a sustainability strategy workshop on February 14, 2009. They created a peace sign collage to showcase what they love about their valley, including the environment, wildlife, and outdoor activities. They also identified issues like traffic, pollution, and overdevelopment. The students proposed ideas for the future like more bike paths, locally grown food, solar power, and walking/cycling more to address these issues and keep the things they love about their valley. They emphasized the need to reduce car use and build safer infrastructure to support more sustainable transportation options.

1. Gr. 6 Student
Presentation at the
Comox Valley
Sustainability Strategy
Workshop
Huband Park School
Feb. 14, 2009

2. We are all Grade Six students
here at Huband School. We
have been meeting over the
past few weeks and
discussing our vision of a
future
Comox Valley.
But first we talked about
what we like abut our Valley
– and there was LOTS.
We brainstormed a list, and
then tried to find pictures
of as many of these
things as possible to put
here on the left side of our
Peace sign collage.

3. So what do we love about our Valley?
We appreciate the multicultural aspect
of our First Nations people as well as
immigrant newcomers. We love the
fresh local food we have available, and
the arts . . .
(Kaitlin Emery)

4. . . . and our environment
that lets us ski and
snowboard and hike and
swim and sail and bike. We
love the wildlife. We
appreciate all the volunteers
who work to make the
Comox Valley better. And
the bike paths – though we
need more! What else do
we like? We love the swans
and the eagles and kayaking
and fish spawning and the
festivals and seeing the
sun rise and set.
(Mollie Green)

5. There are some things that we could do without here. If you look at the bottom of the peace sign you
will see some of those. It is getting too busy and those crowded roads add to noise and air pollution.
Biking from part of the valley to another is not easy, we need more bike routes. We worry about too
much new development, which means our forests and wildlife are disappearing and there are too
many lights on at night. There is too much garbage on the ground -- if you drop, it pick it up. The
landfill is filling up too fast. We need to change our bad habits.
(Alisa Tatham)

6. We have many ideas for the future – you
can see some of them on the right side of
our peace sign. You will notice that many
of these are the same as what we love
about the Comox Valley already – we don’t
want to lose them!! We put the glacier in
the centre because we hope it stays
forever. We want to continue to be able to
do all the great outdoor activities. We
hope the First Nations people and their
traditions and culture will always be a part
of the valley. It is important that we have
more locally grown foods and organic
farms. Perhaps people who live in the
town should be growing more vegetables
instead of lawns.
(Lauren Sargent)

7. In the future we would like to see more
trees, so everyone needs to log selectively.
We would also like to see more bike paths
and routes, darker skies, and better transit
for rural areas. Maybe some clean
beaches, solar power and more walking
and bike riding, even carpooling. We could
also try to start a walking school bus for
some schools.
(Katinka Neumann)

8. So these are the thoughts and
ideas of a few pretty normal Grade
Six kids. We know how fortunate
we are to live in the wonderful
Comox Valley. Not only do we
want to keep it that way – we have
ideas to make things even better.
To begin, we need to get out of our
cars. If we do that, then we have
to build the paths and sidewalks so
that we can walk and cycle safely.
More of us need to learn how to
grow gardens and preserve food.
We need to look at newer, less
damaging technologies. Doing all
this means that we may have to
put out a little more effort, or that
we many not have as much stuff –
but isn’t is worth it?
Thanks for listening to us.
(Liam Pidnosny)