Students fight for the climate

• Climate Friday at Kelowna Secondary School
• Inspired by a global movement
• Students say their generation needs to deal with climate change

Senior grades at Kelowna Secondary School (KSS) have raised their voice about climate change by joining a global movement and inspiring their peers to stand up for the planet.

Environmental Science teacher Dayna Margetts was going to take time off work to protest about the lack of collective leadership surrounding climate change on Friday, but COVID restrictions on the amount of people who can gather held her back. Instead, she decided to motivate her students to work together to have their voices heard in KSS and beyond.

“I want to show my students the power they have, that their voice does matter,” Margetts told Kelowna10.

“They can often be told that they’re just young, they don’t know, but youth, they’re a force and I want to show them that.”

The students placed a large homemade Minecraft tree in the foyer of the school and went around to classrooms to ask questions about climate change. The answers were written on sticky notes and placed around the tree.

“We’re having this climate event at our school because there is a global climate strike happening on this specific Friday every year,” student Gracie Teslyk said.

Climate Friday at KSS was inspired by Fridays for Future, which was founded by young environmental activist Greta Thunberg in 2018 due to the political inaction against global warming. According to the website it’s a youth-led global climate strike movement that’s part of a new wave of change.

Teslyk noted climate issues have been front and centre lately, especially forest fires.

“Those were really worsened by the climate change as well as some other ones like the heat waves we had this year,” she said.

“So, we’re trying to spread awareness to our school because we’re the next generation that’s going to be able to do something about it.”

The students hope this event encourages others to care about the planet and do something to combat climate change. They want to have more events like this in the future to continue the conversation and inspire youth.