Until the start of this school year, I had no idea that there was any program

Metro Vancouver Waste to Energy Facility photo by Mike

in the Vancouver area generating elelctricity from our garbage. I knew that British Columbia has programs that make producers responsible for costs associated with the collection & recycling of the goods they produce at the end of their life cycles. I knew that our province handles a great deal of our recycling right here while other areas rely more on shipping their waste to other countries. I knew that the area’s main landfill site is in Burns Bog, which also contains a large area of protected wetlands. But I was unaware of Metro Vancouver’s waste to energy plant, which, it turns out, is located right here in Burnaby.

Not only was I unaware of the plan’t existence, it seems like every person I mention it to has been similarly in the dark. Maybe that points to a larger problem. We son’t notice our trash much after we throw it away, when really there is no away. We produce a lot of waste, and maybe if it were more visible we’d pay more attention to it.

There is no simple solution to our waste problems, but paying attention seems like a good way to start.

The federal election is just a couple of weeks away, and students at our school will have the opportunity to participate in a program that parallels the actual election and provides students with the opportunity to experience the voting process firsthand and practice the habits of active and informed citizenship. Students from our class will take on the role of election workers and coordinate a vote within the school. Participating students will cast ballots for the election candidates running in our electoral district. The overall results from the student vote across Canada will be shared publicly after the close of polls.

We will be taking a general look at our parliamentary system and at political parties. We will also make use of a version of CBC’s Vote Compass designed for youth to begin getting students thinking about their ideas and values and how different parties’ platforms match or differ from their individual ideas.

We still have more to investigate about government and our roles as citizens and voters, but I am looking forward to those discussions and finding out about students’ experiences with this year’s student vote.

A Limerick poem is a poem where it has 5 lines line 1,2 and 5 all the endings of that sentence has to be rhyming and line 3 and 4 the ends of those sentences they also have to rhyme so this is mine

there once was a child in Spain

he loved to play in the rain

one day he tripped

and broke his hip

and now he is in serious pain

A book spine poem is a poem where you just use book spines to make a poem this is mine

I promise i”ll find you                                                                                                                         panda                                                                                                                   i went walking                                                                                                                        looking at the environment