By Paige Vonk
“Ask a student if they could describe sustainability and the likelihood is you might get two out of 10 who could because it’s not taught in our schools,” said general arts and science professor Jay Smith.
Algonquin’s first water awareness campaign led by Smith, other members of SEATS (sea, earth, action team for sustainability), and the students sustainability club was successful in teaching students about water sustainability on March 21. SEATS is a group of staff and faculty volunteers who are trying to raise awareness about sustainability issues.
Smith hopes this is the first of many campaigns at the college because he feels sustainability is important to be teaching students. “Where we would like to go from here is we would like to see more student action,” he said.
To raise awareness about water sustainability, the group gathered in the Commons and handed out buttons, showed a slideshow of facts and got students to take a quiz to see how much they really know about water so they can gain perspective of what 7 billion people have to go through everyday.
Students also signed a declaration saying that they will limit their use of plastic water bottles and use reusable bottles. If they scored over 80 percent on the 10-question quiz they had the chance to race someone else carrying a five-gallon water jug to win a reusable water bottle and some cash.
Even if students just stopped by to win a prize they ended up learning something as well by participating in the quiz.
“It’s more than just being able to win a prize its about the message,” said Natalie LeBlanc, library and information technician student. “Its about how we take water for granted all the time and we turn the tap on and its there and even then we don’t do it. We don’t fill a reusable water bottle, we don’t turn the tap on when we can.”
LeBlanc didn’t want to run the race when she saw it from afar but after looking at the setup, displays and the declaration she decided to do it because the message was getting across and she realized it was something important to acknowledge.
The University of Ottawa and Carleton University haven’t sold bottled water on their campuses for a few years. Graciella Intungane, an environmental studies student and member of the sustainability club, thinks that Algonquin should also join the movement to stop selling bottled water and maybe even all of Ottawa as some other cities have already done.