Stream of Dreams and Environmental Learnings - Burnaby Schools - School District 41, Burnaby, BC, Canada

Buckingham Elementary and Stoney Creek Community School are the latest two Burnaby Schools to install colourful hand-painted images of fish on their fences, as part of their Stream of Dreams projects. The installations are one of many learning opportunities across the District for students to build awareness of connection to the environment and how they can help support sustainability.

More than 20 years ago, a then ten-year-old girl and her mother founded Stream of Dreams in Burnaby to bring awareness to the 5000 fish killed in Byrne Creek after toxic material was dumped into a storm drain. They teamed up with local schools and the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers, a volunteer group that monitors the creek, to together symbolically bring the fish back to life. The first painted wooden fish were created in the year 2000 by students from Clinton Elementary, Stride Avenue and Edmonds Community Schools. Now the installations can be seen in many places in Canada and parts of the US.

Students are still learning about the connection of fish to storm drains. This month children at Capitol Hill Elementary marked the drains around the school. They painted the symbol of a fish beside the grates to remind people that the water – and anything in it – empties straight into local waterways.

Students, school and district staff work together on creative ways to build awareness of how to support sustainability efforts. Another recent example is at Burnaby Mountain Secondary where students in a marketing class started a vintage shop at the school to support sustainable choices and bring awareness to how each of us can make decisions that impact climate change.

Learn more about other activities in the District below the following photos.

Read More: Supporting Connectedness to Environment and Sustainability