A Grade 9 Chatelech student is trying to raise $11,000 to go on an educational expedition to Antarctica to see the effects of climate change first-hand.
Quinn Runkle, 14, is an active environmentalist who wants to spend her winter break getting hands-on learning with scientists guiding the organized trip. Then she wants to pass her newfound knowledge on to the local community.
"My goal is to educate myself more about climate change so when I get home, I can educate people and spread the word about what I've learned," Quinn said.
So far, she's raised $2,200 working at GRIPS recycling depot and at Pastimes toy store, tutoring, babysitting, co-running the Sunshine Coast Regional District's games/movie nights at Halfmoon Bay Elementary and organizing fundraising events.
After Quinn put pamphlets out at the Raven's Cry Theatre during its showing of March of the Penguins, a West Sechelt woman donated air miles for Quinn to fly to Toronto to meet up with the group before heading south. She still has a significant amount of money to raise before her departure Dec. 26.
The program, Students on Ice, began in 1999 to take students aged 14 to 19 on educational journeys to the Arctic in the summer and Antarctica in the winter. During the two-week trip, the scientist chaperones and the students travel and sleep on a ship and take day trips in Zodiacs to go exploring on land. One of the program goals is to recommend policy changes.
"I think it's such a once in a lifetime opportunity," Quinn said.
Quinn's environmental interest peaked in 2002 when she went to the United Nations' children's conference on the environment. She then founded an environmental program called Ecokids at Halfmoon Bay Elementary School. Last July, she and a fellow student, Jorin Weatherston, went to a youth climate change conference in Victoria. After their return, they told Coast Reporter about their experience at the conference and recently made a presentation to the Sunshine Coast Clean Air Society, which partially sponsored Jorin.
At the conference, Quinn met the director of Students on Ice, Geoff Green, and was immediately interested in participating. Green told her the Poles represent what's happening in the rest of the world but on a more extreme level, with ice melting from global warming. Quinn has now been accepted to go on the trip in December, after applying and paying a deposit. She received her pre-trip study package in the mail full of information on Antarctica and the environment.
"The Poles are the best classrooms on Earth," Quinn said. "From what I've heard and read, it sounds like it will be the most phenomenal experience."
Quinn is planning a garage sale in the Halfmoon Bay Elementary School gym, the date to be set after the teachers' strike ends, where people can rent tables for $20 or donate gently used items to Quinn to sell.
Also, on Oct. 28, she is holding a fundraiser at the Chatelech theatre at 7 p.m., if the teachers' strike has ended, where Dr. Rand Rudland will present a slide show on his experience travelling to Antarctica. The school is renting the theatre to her at no cost to support her fundraising.
The Chat PAC gave her $250 toward the trip. In mid-November she plans to run a second-hand fashion show at Halfmoon Bay Elementary School. This week, she was starting to send out letters to local businesses and larger corporations requesting sponsorship of her trip. She is offering to give presentations to all sponsors when she returns.
She has travelled before to Washington state, California and Hawaii, but never to the Poles. Nor has she ever seen a penguin, even in a zoo, because she doesn't support the captivity of animals in zoos. She's looking forward to seeing Antarctica's other animals, such as blue whales, seals and albatrosses.
More information on the program is at www.
studentsonice.com. Quinn has brochures on her trip available at Welcome Woods Market and the Halfmoon Bay General Store.
She can be reached at 604-885-5002 or at [email protected].
