The summer is always full of activities involving the environment and activities that help you learn more about it. I was thrilled this summer with how the environment was doing. There have been less invasive species reported and more people are starting to learn the Aboriginal way of life. More people are getting concerned about the environment and have made better decisions about recycling their material instead of throwing it in the waste. This was a great summer and I also had fun doing the following activities during my summer vacation.

One of my environmental outings involved going to the Heart Lake conservation area in the heart of Brampton, a couple of weeks ago. I studied the drum circle plants and rocks situated in their specific locations. The designated rocks placed there were for directions such as north=white rocks, east=yellow rocks, west=red rocks and south=dark grey rocks. Also a point of fact to remember was when entering a drum circle always comes from the west side (enter from red rocks all the time) and when walking in the circle, please walk in a clockwise direction. It does not matter is from which side you depart out of the circle but I preferably depart from north side because Canada is up north and I like Canada. I also learned that after ceremonies of Native Indians drum leaders always put tobacco on rocks when the ceremony was finished for good luck. I also learned a really cool fact about Heart lake conservation area such as it formed during the big ice age 12, 000 years ago. I had a lot of fun at the Heart lake conservation area and saw many people there building teepees and teeter-totters out of natural wood which was very fascinating. I went on a boardwalk around the lake and noticed that it had a lot of waste such as tissues, bananas and even an abandoned picnic table. This was surprising to me because since this was a conservation area, I thought it would be a little cleaner than it was when I saw it. But, I guess some people just don’t understand that it’s not good to litter.

During my summer vacation I just didn’t go to conservation areas and learn about the environment. I also went to a Leading Edge Conference and a tour of the Recycling place of Kingston by the SEEQ program. The Leading Edge Conference was a great opportunity to let me know how economic development in the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve is progressing. I learned how building a greener Ontario would attract more tourists to visit our province. This is related to economic development because people will like the green that is spread all around Ontario. All in all the leading edge conference was about striving to provide sustainable practices and attractions in the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve.

The recycling tour was part of many activities that I did while attending Queen’s University for the SEEQ program (Summer Enrichment Experience at Queen’s). This plant was very interesting to see for it didn’t use the latest technology for recycling such as Toronto’s Plant did. It didn’t use lasers or other fancy gadgets to crush stuff or machines to sort through the recycling. The Kingston plant was all hand sorted and instead of lasers they crushed the recycling with big machines instead. It was a great experience and I hope to do it again.

Stay tuned for my next article on “Stay Cool, Stay Green!”