SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Classrooms at St. Patrick High School turned out their lights on Friday to celebrate Earth Hour a day early, thanks to the school's Interact Club.

Earth Hour is a yearly event celebrated around the world where people turn off their lights for one hour. This year's Earth Hour fell on Saturday at 8:30 p.m.

The three students who took the lead at St. Pat's were Cristina Nitu, Emma Welsh - both in Grade 11 - and Nah Ly, in Grade 10, according to teacher Christina Silzer, one of the co-ordinators of the event.

"Those three took the initiative to advertise and make our school aware of Earth Hour," said Silzer.

Nitu had asked high school administration for permission to turn out lights a day earlier in the school last Friday as schools, of course, aren't open on Saturdays.

The group only got formal approval to turn lights off for half an hour, Silzer said, "but most classes did for the whole class period, which is more than an hour."

The teacher said lights in the halls and bathrooms remained on for security reasons.

Though a half hour was approved, Nitu was not quite satisfied.

"The whole point of Earth Hour is for it to be a whole hour," said Nitu.

Nitu was happy, however, that she could put up posters around the school advertising the event.

She said she takes protecting the environment very seriously. She has even introduced a recycling program to her own home - a task which her mother says can be near-overwhelming at times.

"Sometimes the deck gets quite full of recyclables," said Delia Nitu, Cristina's mother. "She's grabbing every piece of paper. Every piece of something that can be recycled."

Delia said the household was full of posters, as Cristina prepared to advertise Earth Hour throughout the high school.

Cristina even enlisted the help of her brothers to make the posters. Cristina said she planned to celebrate Earth Hour at home in a big way.

"I'll be unplugging everything. The appliances in the kitchen, the computers - everything," said Cristina.

"I don't think my family will have much of say in it," she laughed.