{"id":25176,"date":"2019-11-08T11:52:21","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T16:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25176"},"modified":"2019-11-08T12:03:11","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T17:03:11","slug":"grade-5-class-sets-sights-on-province-after-winning-pitch-to-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/grade-5-class-sets-sights-on-province-after-winning-pitch-to-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Grade 5 class sets sights on Province after winning pitch to Council"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They\u2019ve made a difference, and they\u2019re not stopping at\nthe local level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade 5 students at Hartman Public School, under the\nguidance of teacher Gina Shillolo, celebrated a victory last week as Council\nvoted in favour of creating a garden to help urban pollinators, specifically\nthe monarch butterfly, an idea they pitched to Council as part of a closer look\nat local government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, despite their victory in encouraging Council to\nplant a milkweed garden to feed the monarch butterfly, whose population has\nbeen on a steep decline in recent years, the students are not content to rest\non their laurels; with their win in hand, they have their sights firmly set on\nencouraging upper levels of government, particularly the Province, to step up\ntheir game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to bring [monarch butterfly] populations back to\nwhere it was in 20 years,\u201d says Felix Zheng. \u201cHopefully by having a monarch\ngarden, they will be able to produce more butterflies and they will fly away\nand keep on producing until they are back in their original places.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are basically doing the same (pollinating work) as\nbees and their numbers are decreasing because of smoke, cars and cutting down\ntrees,\u201d adds classmate Myles McKay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds Saeed Soubra: \u201cSince monarch butterflies are\ndecreasing 90 per cent over the last 20 years, what we wanted to do was make a\ngarden for milkweed and other stuff the monarch butterflies need so they can\ncontinue coming. Then, when they have to [migrate] to Mexico, they can go and, when\nspring comes, they can come back and have more food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chelsea Donahoe says she and her classmates wanted to\ntake this project on and advocate for it at Town Hall because the decline of pollinators\nhas an immediate impact on the world around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to see if there was something we could do to\nhelp and get more flowers because trees, without the pollinators, could die and\nthen there\u2019s no more oxygen,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julianne De Leo says they took their idea to Mayor Tom\nMrakas and Council asking if they could do anything to help. If they couldn\u2019t,\nshe adds, students would have shifted gears asking for permission to build one\nthemselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe brought this idea to the Mayor and Council because\nthey are the ones who can actually help us,\u201d says Olivia Yoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that they got a helping hand following unanimous\napproval of Councillor Wendy Gaertner\u2019s motion to begin work on an urban\npollinators\u2019 garden, possibly at the site of the planned Aurora Wildlife Park,\na short distance from their school, students are still getting used to the idea\nof being real difference-makers in the community \u2013 and they are wearing that\ntitle with pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt makes us feel good because when we were researching\nthe Provincial government, they said they weren\u2019t willing to help, so we\ndecided to go to the municipal government and we were really lucky Councillor\nGaertner decided to help us out,\u201d says Maya Erfani. \u201cI think that maybe next\nyear we should go to the Provincial government and go one level higher so we\ncan expand our idea more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds Chelsea, \u201cI think we should try to convince them to\nactually want to do something and that it is a good cause.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf our plan works,\u201d agrees Colin Voloceai, \u201cthis might\nencourage others to do the same thing in Ontario. If the Provincial government\nsees this, they might change their mind about helping us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the students share their thoughts on taking their\nproject to the next level or two, Ms. Shillolo looks on with pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s phenomenal to be a part of the journey and see it was their words that instigated what ended up being the final result,\u201d she says. \u201cWe were invited to Town Hall to share ideas and to see that the municipal government is taking their idea seriously is and that is just remarkable. It is remarkable to see that actual government in action.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They\u2019ve made a difference, and they\u2019re not stopping at the local level. Grade 5 students at Hartman Public School, under the guidance of teacher Gina Shillolo, celebrated a victory last week as Council voted in favour of creating a garden to help urban pollinators, specifically the monarch butterfly, an idea they pitched to Council as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/2019-11-07-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6y4","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-26 00:37:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}