Canada's greenest school celebrates Earth Day

For the students at Haldane Elementary Schoolin Chase, B.C., every day is Earth Day.

Whether it's recycling, upcycling, planting trees or cleaning up creeks, vice principal Mark McVittesays being environmentally conscious is just something every student internalises.

"It's really just become the culture of our school," McVitte told Daybreak Kamloops.

"When students get here in the younger grades, they recognize this is something that we do at our school and we're building a better culture with our students through that."

Earlier this year, Haldane Elementary was designated by national non-profitSEEDS Connections as the greenest school in Canada because it has completed 10,000 environmental projects.

The school is the first and only in the country to achieve what SEEDS Connections calls an Earth X status.

Haldane Elementary became part of SEEDS Connection's GREEN Schools program in 1992. Since then, students have continuously worked on a number of green projects that have now earned them this prestigious title, said McVitte.

"It's taken a long time to build up all of these projects and I think they're quite proud of all the activities that they do," he said.

To celebrate Earth Day this year, McVitte says students will plant a tree and participate in a recycled crafts fair at a local museum, as well as participate in some clean-up and poster projects.

To hear the full interview with Mark McVitte, listen to the audio labelled: B.C. school enjoys greenest school status