 | Home page |  | Text size |  | E-mail this page |
Busy days on the bay Tusarvik students, staff engaged inside and out
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, September 25, 2013
REPULSE BAY
Students and staff at Tusarvik School have been kept busy since the school year began in Repulse Bay.
Grade 10 student Jonathan Ijjangiaq helps clean the shoreline in Repulse Bay. - photo courtesy Ryan Lahti |
After celebrating the five graduates in its Class of 2013 and participating in its annual Great Canadian Shore Cleanup this past month, Tusarvik held its annual Terry Fox Run on Sept. 6, had four students and a teacher attend science camp at Baker Lake from Sept. 9 to 12, and held its Embrace Life March on Sept. 20.
Teacher Carol Kennedy helped organize the Terry Fox run at Tusarvik and said student races are held as part of the event.
Kennedy said the races are held for students in Grade 7 to 12.
She said the kids look forward to the races, with some taking the event quite seriously.
"Some of them train to get ready leading up to the race, and they're quite competitive with each other," said Kennedy.
"They get the Terry Fox message and really want to push themselves.
"Some of them have said to me they wanted to stop, but then they thought about Terry, so that's pretty amazing."
Tusarvik breaks its annual Fox run into three parts.
Kindergarten to Grade 3 students do a short walk around town, before returning to the school and games in the gym.
Grade 4 to Grade 6 students go further, while students in Grade 7 to Grade 12 go all the way to Old Water Lake and back to Tusarvik.
Kennedy said the event is arranged so everyone can finish.
She said a number of features on Terry Fox are shown in the classrooms leading up to the annual run.
"Terry Fox is, really, the theme for my Grade 7 class at the beginning of the year.
"I use him as a role model to show students when things get tough, you try harder and don't give up.
"I really use him to get the year started right, and I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of the teachers talk about Terry Fox throughout the first couple of weeks.
"We also hold an assembly before the races to watch some inspirational movies about his life, put posters up around the school and talk about him, so our students, definitely, know who Terry Fox is."
Kennedy said Repulse students may not look at Fox as a Canadian icon, the way students in the south do, but they do think of him as a hero.
She said while they might not grasp everything about Fox and what he endured, they see him as somebody special.
"They put him up on a high pedestal, that's for sure.
"We take a unique approach in our fundraising, too, in that we try to encourage every student to give a dollar because that's what Terry Fox asked of every Canadian, for us all to give at least $1.
"We also hold a bake sale to raise money after the race, as well as a penny sale.
"All the proceeds go the Terry Fox Foundation and this year we raised more than $800."
Fellow teacher Sarah Williams organized Tusarvik's Great Canadian Shore Cleanup.
Williams said the entire school, from kindergarten to Grade 12, took part in the event.
She said 2013 marked the third consecutive year Tusarvik held the event.
"The kids really enjoy getting out to the creeks, ditches and ponds to clean up those areas," said Williams.
"They realize how much better it looks when they're finished.
"It also gives them a role to play in keeping their own town clean, which is separate from the community cleanup that is, generally, done by adults.
"A lot of them just have fun because it's a physical activity they enjoy."
Senior students at Tusarvik collect data to submit to the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup organization.
The submitted data is tabulated across the country to ascertain the Top 10 collections of garbage along the country's shorelines.
Williams said the garbage collected by the Repulse students included a lot of cigarette butts, pop cans and plastic bags.
She said although she doesn't have the total poundage calculated yet, dozens of garbage bags full of refuse were collected by the students.
"The kids were treated to some nice snacks by our Northern store when they finished the cleanup.
"I can see this staying an annual event at Tusarvik.
"The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is held for a week in southern schools around mid-September.
"We do ours a little earlier at the end of August because it's not as cold then."
Williams said the activity also helps connect the school to the community more.
She said the cleanup fits nicely with Tusarvik's Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) principles.
"The cleanup falls under environmental stewardship, which is an IQ principle our school subscribes to and falls in line with taking care of the home they live in.
"We talk about where their food comes from, which, traditionally, is the land and water.
"So if the land and water are dirty, then their food is going to be dirty."
| 
