A crowd of invigorated community members, students and staff were pumped at the success of the first ever Health Fair at Lake Cowichan Secondary School on Thursday, April 18. Last year LCSS received a $4,000 grant from the University of Victoria to put towards healthy living at the school.
“After visiting every booth in our gym I swelled with pride for my school, its students and my community.” gushed teacher Michele Taylor.
Noni Battye, one of the teacher sponsors of the event, said that with the grant they created a Healthy Schools action team which consists of Grade 8-12 students who meet a few times a month to create opportunities for health in the school.
The students, and teacher sponsors, decided on a health fair where the community would be invited in to show students what healthy activities are available to them in Lake Cowichan as well as what community health resources are accessible in town.
“Very well done LCSS. I was particularly inpressed by a young girl named Maeve, who compared adult and adolescent brains,” commented Jody McKenzie on LCSS’s Facebook page. “ She presented her material very clearly. She had obviously studied her topic and learned her information and she was very well spoken.”
Battye went on to say that the Grade 10 planning class created inquiry based projects where they asked a question about an aspect of health that they wanted to know about. Their presentations were the answers that they found to their questions and they had a component of interaction required as part of their presentation. LCSS leadership students also added to the presentations with some activities.
“From what I saw and what I heard from the community, staff and students, I think it went very well and I was very proud of our students,” said Battye “They learned a lot and were excited to share what they learned with others. Looks like it may become a yearly activity!”