Students Create a Buzz about Bees

This past year students at Laurier Macdonald CLC (an IB School in Montreal) learned about the decline of the global bee population and became aware of how the disappearance of pollinating insects  impacts our global food supply.

Prompted by this knowledge, Secondary IV leadership students developed a concrete response to support the local bee population - a perfect example of student participation in "real-world" community service activities.

LMAC partnered with Alvéole, an organization that helps people install and care for urban honeybee colonies.  The students knew better than to install a beehive on a school roof without addressing concerns of students, families and local residents, so they developed a communication campaign.

The rental of the hives also came at a cost, so the LMAC governing board loaned money to the students that will over time be repaid through the sale of honey collected from the hives. Delicious!

How Did They Do It?

Secondary 4 Leadership students were divided into different "Public Relation" committees responsible for educating local stakeholders about the purpose behind the installation of the two honeybee hives through social media, posters, presentations to elementary students, and promotional films.  

According to LMAC teacher, Michael Penning, this experience “helped students to develop skills in communication, leadership, and project management”.

The CLC approach is all about developing school-community partnerships. The CLC coordinator has been working closely with Alvéole to manage logistics and the students ensured the humans of LMAC knew about the bees and their role in the school.  

You can find more information about LMAC Bees on twitter @lmacbees

Student Voice in a Second Language

Student voice and meaningful student involvement are important elements of Community Service Learning projects.  Student voice happens when there is a process for engaging students as partners in school improvement for the sake of education, community, and democracy.   

Madame Desjardins, a French teacher at Laurier Macdonald CLC created a space for her secondary five students to address a community and school need.  Students worked out solutions to an authentic environmental problem, all the time communicating in their second language.

Students first became aware of the problem of the urban heat island or in French, « îlots de chaleur urbains » during a presentation by the local Écoquatier.

When the students understood that an under utilized asphalt section of their schoolyard was an example of an urban heat island, an idea developed to create a student initiated green space called “Eco-Laurier”.

Every 2-3 weeks, Madame Desjardins invited community partners from Écoquartier, a youth entrepreneurship counsellor from Horizon Carrière and a local landscape architect.

The students were split into 4 different committees – Marketing, Finance, Production and Human Resources.  The students had to communicate and coordinate with each other in French.   As the space came together, the students researched the appropriate flowers and vegetation to plant and built benches.  The space was promoted with the slogan – “chill in the back of LMAC to eat your snack and just relax”.

It is not always easy for teachers to make space for students to have voice.  I asked Madame Desjardins what she learned from the experience and she replied, “I learned to let go and work without a net”.

I applaud her attitude, especially when it results in young people having a chance to gain self-confidence and address an authentic need in their community, especially while using their second language.