(00:01):
Well, I'm in over my head. No one told me I'm trying to keep my footprints small, harder than I thought it could be. I'm in over my head. What do I really need? Trying to save the planet over someone. Please save me. Trying to save the planet oh will someone please save me.

(00:25):
Welcome to In Over My Head. I'm Michael Barts for this special edition of Plant Saving Superstars. I went on a little road trip to the village of Mrynam Alberta, located about two hours east of Edmonton. Their K through 12 school has only about 200 students, but over the last six years, New Myrnam School has incorporated some amazing sustainability projects into their curriculum for hands-on learning that has benefited the students and the community. Some of the projects include a greenhouse, solar-powered golf carts and a hydroponic system. Currently, they're converting a school bus into an off-grid tiny home. When I found that out, I knew I had to come for a visit. My day included a tour of the facility and chats with the students, staff and parents, and I was blown away by the work they're doing here, and I'm excited to share it with you. Upon arriving at the school, I was greeted warmly by assistant principal Robert Tymofichuck, or Mr. T as the kids call him.

(01:17):
Hey, Robert,

(01:18):
How are you? I'm good, how are you?

(01:20):
I'm gonna let Mr. T briefly describe what the school has been up to.

(01:24):
Yeah. So our students from grade seven to 12 work on a series of projects, and we have three main projects this year. We have a team tiny home where we're essentially taking a bus and making it into a Net Zero tiny home. We have the team hydroponics, and we've been growing plants hydroponically for the last three years. And in the facility that we're growing these plants, there is a six-kilowatt grid- tied solar array on the roof of the building. And essentially it's like an indoor greenhouse then. So even though we're using quite a bit of energy, it is renewable energy that we're, that we're using. It is tuned led work. So they make the decisions and the adults are there to help facilitate. I'll, I'll have some ideas of, you know, maybe what the answers could be, but the majority of work that they do, it's complex.

(02:11):
And when they don't know the answers to the questions, you know, you're onto a good project. And when we started this years back, the students had asked the adults, how do we do this? And you give an answer like, really, I don't know, I have some ideas. And it's like, really? You don't know? I'd love your audience to tune into a series of videos that we have on the New Myrnam school.ca webpage. It's a big blue button and it's called our projects and videos. But it, it breaks down the last six years of what we've been doing. The projects we've been involved in in the last six years typically involve like energy conservation with energy environmental sustainability. A firm, I wanna say thanks to, it's called Inside Education. And they're, a nonprofit group within Alberta that gives a series of grants to schools you have to apply.

(02:54):
It's a very competitive process and they call it the A plus for energy grants. So it started six years ago here in New Myrnum School, and it really shaped what we do here. The majority of work is done within ctf, that's like junior high career foundations course. And then there's cts in high school. And essentially the brunt of the work is done by junior high and high school, but we try to involve as many grades as possible within the part. Like for example, on team hydroponics, there's junior high and senior high been going at the project, but they might do microgreens in let's say, you know, grade one and two. So in the school they have the little grow lamps and they'll grow microgreens right in the classroom.

(03:33):
Now that I had the basics, it was time to tour sea tech, the building where the magic happens and the students build all their projects. My guys were Mr. T and principal Danielle Eriksen.

(03:43):
Hi Eric.

(03:44):
Hi Michael. Hi Michael. Danielle Eriksen. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet

(03:48):
You. When I first stepped into the shop, I saw something big, yellow and amazing. I think I see a tiny house.

(03:55):
.

(03:56):
I'll let the students give you a proper tour later. But suffice it to say it's a very cool project.

(04:01):
It's not a school bus anymore. No, it's a cool bus. Cool bus. Absolutely. So would you believe that's about 30 hours of work to change that? You know, the old, the old decco was really stuck on and then the paint got scraped off.

(04:13):
It's ridiculous to me when I, like I am not the person that normally would know anything about like how to fix things in here. And when he says it took 30 hours to do that, I go, oh my gosh, what are you doing ? But then I come in and like see the kids and they're, they're not just standing around on their phones or twiddling their thumbs, like they're, they really are working on it.

(04:33):
One of the first projects that they tackled was a pedal-powered battery charger.

(04:38):
So, so this is a grade three four project from several years back. It is a human-powered generator where you can charge your cell phone or you can plug in lights or whatever. So as you turn the wheel, it spins this big DC motor and the DC motor is connected to something called a DC to DC buck converter. And over here it'll tell you so many watts peak. Now maybe Ms. Eriksen can, can help me pedal Here. Here. Grab, grab that. We're gonna, okay, let's go .

(05:11):
I don't think I'm helping

(05:12):
I think, oh, you are. Teamwork is always is a good thing. And you'll see WP, which is Watts Peak, and we'll see what our energy is to do this. Oh, miss Eric. Good .

(05:26):
I wanted to see...

(05:28):
Okay, here we go. Now we're going. Okay. Lower and lower left. Okay, that's good. Okay, good. I'm done. Oh yeah, we're outta breath . We're every one minute's worth of pedalling you can get 10 minutes worth of cell phone charge.

(05:41):
Another pass project was solar-powered golf carts.

(05:46):
We had purchased a fleet of electric golf carts and they were in rough shape and almost really destined for landfill because they weren't usable in their form. So the students did a frame-up restoration and then they retrofitted with a solar panel. And when we got into the project, I thought, okay, maybe it's going to like extend charging cycles. But essentially if you have a three-battery configuration compared to the stock six-battery configuration, like half the amount of batteries that typically has, you can go eight kilometres on that configuration without the solar component. And if there are good sunny days, the charge rate is pretty decent. And the county of St. Paul purchased two of those carts and they're using them in their campsites. Like you could hardly hear these carts. There are zero emissions of renewable energy. It's almost like bit of a dream. Like if electric cars on the highway can can do that, that would be, you know, incredible. But the, the, the energy required to do so is much higher than, than the golf carts.

(06:36):
Of course, I had to take one for a test drive.

(06:39):
So, so jump in the driver's seat here and we're gonna, we're gonna drive around with the energy from the sun. Yeah. . Okay, let's make sure we're in gear. We are good. Okay. Turn on the key and away we go. Let's go jump. First time driving electric vehicle. This is great. There we go. It's got a lot of spunks, so just, just watch yourself . All right, here we go. It's got a lot of torque driving the golf carts and the cool part is this came from the sun. The energy for us to go around from place to place is came from the sun. Awesome. Isn't that cool? So fun. It's zero emission. Yeah.

(07:13):
Mr. T likes this thing so much

(07:15):
That we put it in the Merna parade this summer.

(07:18):
. Oh yeah, that throw candy.

(07:21):
Mr. T and Danielle showed me many more things but the students are the real superstars so it was time to meet them.

(07:27):
So, hello class, I'm Michael. I have a podcast that's called the In Over My Head podcast and it's about the environment and I talk to environmental experts about how we can solve the climate crisis. And I live in an off-grid tiny house.

(07:40):
Each day starts in the classroom where students from Team Tiny House team Net Zero and Team Hydroponics all give updates on their progress. Then it's off to C-Tech to get to work.

(07:49):
Alright. Okay. Everyone's got safety glasses. Yep. Let's roll.

(07:56):
Within moments of arriving the shop came to life as each student diligently worked away on their given task. Some were solo but most worked together. This is when I met grade seven student Harper and grade nine student, Olivia who are the leads for Team Tiny House. They kindly gave me a tour of the project. The first voice you hear is Harper.

(08:14):
There is a lot happening. Mm-Hmm. , this is actually the tire. Well and our seniors built a frame around it so we could put our stove on top of it. Okay. And we got some tile donated that we're gonna put around it to make it look nice and so that the stove can sit on tile. Some of our juniors have been tiling. Mm-Hmm figuring the pattern out, stuff like that. Yep. We decided to have a pretty basic toilet so that we didn't have to use like plumbing and water and stuff. Mm-Hmm. . So it's basically a box. We just cut out some pieces of wood and made a box and our bucket is gonna be the toilet part of it. Okay. And so we're gonna sit it in the box and we're gonna put a real toilet seed lid on it. Mm-Hmm. and that's basically our toilet. And then when, whenever you're done you need to dump it out, you just take it out and Yeah. We are composting toilet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(09:15):
This is Olivia.

(09:17):
So there'll be a hinge on the back so that it's not just loose. And then yeah, we have our bed here that attaches to the wall. Mm-Hmm. and then you can pull it down and set up the legs. And then this is like our dining area. So this opens up cuz there's a lot of stuff on it and then they're making the other one. So then this one will have all the batteries in it

(09:42):
So it opens up and this are battery and converter is going to be fitting in this box.

(09:52):
And tthen you can also put like your shoes in it. Yep. So that you are not tripping over all of them. And then on the back part of the roof we're looking at making a deck on top of it. And then the front will have all of the solar panels.

(10:04):
Yeah. Olivia's actually been working on figuring out prices for the deck so, and all of that stuff.

(10:10):
Yeah. I was price checking from the back to about here. Mm-Hmm. so that we could put the solar panels on the deck and then still have like seating. Okay. That you can just move in and out. I'm not completely done price checking, but so far we're looking at just a small deck that you can sit on with the ladder on the side and then the solar panels out the front.

(10:30):
We're trying to like really have enough storage and like use all of our space wisely so that we're not wasting any space. And we have enough storage for people. Usually a lot of us are moving in on the bus. We usually have two people working on the tile. We have Holly and I working on the toilet. The bed just stays there. We're trying gonna try and take it out so that we have more room cuz it's kind of taking up a lot of space as you can see. Mm-Hmm. Olivia's usually planning, doing stuff like that.

(11:02):
Yeah. usually I'll be making phone calls in the cafeteria. Okay. And then Judy and Justina doing the bench work over on the working

(11:11):
Table and so they'll pop in and out here they'll be measuring or they'll be fitting stuff and it's just kind of like, yeah, it's just busy.

(11:21):
It's organized. Chaos.

(11:22):
Chaos. Yeah. It is. Okay. And then usually at the end of class, Mr t likes us to keep it clean. So we do a cleanup, five-minute cleanup. Nice. Just not put away everything but like sweep up a bit of sawdust or whatever, or put stuff away that doesn't need to be out, like the tools. So yeah, that's just simple, tiny home. I guess.

(11:44):
During my initial tour I learned that the Cool Bus wasn't the original idea for the tiny home.

(11:50):
And then we had a brainstorming session and the, the kids came up with some very, very unique ideas. One of 'em was the fuselage from a Lear jet. Okay. It was actually on Kijiji and then, you know, like he, you know, wouldn't that'd be a good one. And then another idea came up was a surplus tank. Okay. So you can imagine that could be quite interesting. And then the, it came down to two top ideas. One of 'em was an ambulance and the other one was a school bus.

(12:18):
Later I sat down with Olivia Harper to chat more about their experience on Team Tiny House. I asked Olivia about how she felt when she first saw the Cool Bus.

(12:25):
Most of us were at a volleyball game, so none of us knew what was happening. And then we were in the classroom the following day and we got told that there was a surprise and we were all very excited because we didn't know what it was. And we walked in and immediately we ran into the bus and we just didn't know what was happening and we were overwhelmed and it was amazing. I learned how to fix the exterior a lot and that it affected me a lot more because I saw the beginning and it was almost a rust bucket. It was getting close to it. There was a big hole at the bottom of the door, there was rust on the tire wells and I participated in fixing those holes and then I helped with the decking on the front of the bus and we changed it to Cool Bus because we're cool.

(13:13):
The main challenge that we faced started at the beginning once we figured out we were having a bus because all of a sudden we had measurements and we had so much things that we needed to fit into such a small space. So we spent hours upon hours trying to figure out the floor layout. And then we came back to school in September and we completely scratched everything. We had to redo it, we knew what had to be in there and we downsized. And then we are multi-purposing some elements in the bus and we had our own way to solve the challenge.

(13:46):
Then I asked Harper about her experience on Team Tiny House.

(13:49):
We're having fun in a safe way and it's just fun. We just build and spend time. We talk with each other about the bus and all the stuff that we're gonna do. So it's really fun when we get exciting news, like different people coming up to see what we've been doing or if he has some exciting news that we got this grant that some team applied for. So that's really exciting news. I think my favorite part is being able to use my hands and like learning different things about building stuff. And so that really, like, it's really fun for me because I like to use my hands and I like to like figure stuff out with my hands. So I think that was really an exciting part for me. And just being able to spend time with my classmates and build stuff building, you're gonna make some mistakes and that's part of the fun because whenever one of us makes mistakes, we're always there helping each other figure the problem out. And I really enjoy that. The one big challenge is thinking that you don't know how to do do it. And so sometimes you feel like you just get thrown in there, but then you know, to ask people to help you out and they'll help you figure it out.

(14:59):
While at the school I ran into Harper's mom Leaf, who has been helping on Team Tiny House and shared her thoughts on what the school is doing.

(15:06):
I've just been kind of volunteering some of my time coming in and just helping with maybe some of the tiling that's been going on in there. I can't say I've been helping with too much, but when it came time to the tiling there was a little bit of help that I was able to offer and yeah, it's coming along really well. It has been amazing. It has been such, a blessing really to see not only for my child but for these other children to be able to come into a setting and to be able to be exposed to something like this. I mean, it's not just a tiny home in that shop. Like you're seeing the mechanics being done, you're seeing the woodworking being done. Like it's just such a, I guess a sense of relief to know that when your child comes to a school that can be exposed to that kind of stuff, it's gonna set them up in the long run for a possible career.

(15:55):
It's awesome. It's, it's mind-blowing what these children are being exposed to. Just the creativity, you know, that these kids have to bring. Like, it's definitely student-driven. It's the kids coming together to brainstorm, Hey, what what is this gonna look like? You know, that's pretty cool. It, it's definitely the children driving it, but it's guided by the adult, you know, and I think that's fantastic. Again, I think it's just a, a great opportunity that she gets to be exposed to something like this and to be part of something like this. You don't see this in a lot of schools , if any, you know, this is definitely a life experience for her and, and it's gonna be neat that one day she's gonna be able to talk about this and something that she did. And I appreciate the staff here that allows this to happen.

(16:39):
During my initial tour, I asked what the plan for the tiny house was once it was finished.

(16:44):
Yeah. I want it to be really proud too, so that when I purchased the tiny home for my husband's hot hunting cottage Yeah. Then I, I keep dropping this, that Mr. T will just let me buy it. So far, so far it hasn't taken.

(16:56):
We're not exactly sure whether we're gonna auction it off and proceeds, we'll go back into the project work for sustainability or we might keep it around for the school as a kind of a, a model of, you know, for the community of, of NetZero Tiny Home.

(17:09):
We've got some other, some other projects too, right? Like there's an Alice test site just on the other side of the highway. They have a sign in the middle of a pasture. It doesn't really look like much yet, but the kids have helped plant some trees out there. We have plans for like, with the community for like a community garden out there. And so the part of the thought was maybe we bring the tiny home out there, look at that. We got a place for people to come and volunteer and do their stuff and then wash their hands in the bus. Yeah. Maybe. And have a place to rest if it starts to rain on them or something. Right. Get out of the sun. But not really sure yet. I really selfishly would like to take it home.

(17:46):
Next, I met Eddie, a grade seven student who's on Team net zero to ask about his experience.

(17:53):
We sort of started out by looking at what was using so much electricity in the SeaTech building cuz with the 5.2-kilowatt array on the roof, we weren't putting out any electricity onto the grid. So we kind of started out there looking at what was using the most electricity in the building, which ended up being the HRVs heat recovery ventilation systems. And those were taking about 6,000 watts and 54,000 in a year. And that was what was costing us the most. So we actually presented to town council on November 17th, 2022. And now we're kind of trying to get another solar array after we talk to them cuz they are going to send an electrician, electrician in and kind of fix that cuz we're putting timers on them that way they're not spending as much.

(18:43):
One of Eddie's responsibilities is grant writing.

(18:46):
I'm right now writing to LFS, which is learning for a sustainable future. And that's what I'm kind of currently working on. The others are kind of working on other grants and applying for those.

(19:00):
As a reminder, Eddie is 11. Amazing. Lastly, I asked him about any challenges he faced on Team Net Zero.

(19:07):
Yeah, we had to push back the date that we were talking to town council cuz they couldn't quite fit us in. And another thing was we had to postpone it for when we had like weekends and all that and we had to fill each other in on what happened while we were gone if we were sick or that

(19:26):
I still needed to learn a bit more about team hydroponics. So I asked Mr. T to give me some background on the project.

(19:31):
The grade nines were looking at non-traditional growing techniques and did the first hydroponic system in the school. They developed something called Monster and it was like a lettuce-growing machine. And that's kind of, you know, where we started off with the hydroponic system. And then several years later, you know, we, we liked what Monster was doing, but we want to like scale it up and make sure that there was no leaks and, you know make a very, very simple system that was very water efficient and energy efficient. And that's what kind of led into, I think it was year three that we, we did the reducing our carbon footprint through community collaboration, essentially trying to grow our produce here. We're from Merna, the next nearest center is, you know, 20 minutes drive and then a half-hour drive and we're two hours away from Edmonton. And we definitely wanted food that was healthy. No pesticides, no herbicides. And then in the production of that food, it's a low carbon footprint because right now if you go to a grocery store and you get ahead of lettuce, I don't know where the lettuce is grown, obviously someplace warmer, maybe California, Mexico, you know, thousands of kilometres gets transported just so we can, you know, have it at our kitchen table.

(20:31):
I also got a tour of the system with Mr. T and Danielle.

(20:34):
This is our horticulture classes. Just recently I think we had lettuce in all three and then those, those since September, right. So we did how many harvest, how many harvests in each of them. A ton of lettuce we got out of them. And then the kids decided that they wanted to sort of change things up a little bit and there's a need for not just lettuce, right. But I mean you have to drive out of the community for all of your fruits and vegetables, right? Yeah. So they've started here. Now it looks, I think they've got cucumbers, tomatoes, the strawberries. Well you say the strawberries. Yes. We should eat some of this. Hey, Mr. Teeth, can we Yeah, I grab the the new springs there. There you go. Do you want a piece? Yes, there we go. It's good stuff. Oh, that smaller leaf is almost a little bitter.

(21:19):
Then I chatted with grade 12 student, Hanna, about her experience on Team Hydroponics.

(21:23):
That's really good. We've been working at it for quite a while now and I'm a lot more involved this year, which is really fun. And I've been learning a lot about different, like, hydroponic methods and we're gonna start doing aquaponics very soon. So I'm very excited. We went to this Cultivate conference in around October. It was hosted by Inside Education and we got to learn like visit with a bunch different schools and learn about all their different energy projects and they, some of them are doing aquaponics and so we decided we wanted to do aquaponics, which is introducing fish into a hydroponic system instead of using nutrients and acids from like chemicals. It's just like naturally from fish. So we wanted to do that, but our biggest challenge is like trying to figure out how to build a new system and introduce fish into it because it's way different than just adding chemicals.

(22:13):
We're trying to make a really small test one, which is only like two feet wide. Like it's just little. And we were gonna use goldfish for it. When we first started, we were doing eco classroom project and I remember I, I hated it like, don't tell Mr. T, but I, I really didn't enjoy it. I was like, this is like, I'd rather be doing science, like what am I doing? And then now I've really learned that I really like project-based learning and it's way easier for me to understand. So I wish I would've not taken it so much for granted and now I'm seeing like how much it's actually helped me learn and understand new concepts. So I like it a lot more now. I'm way more involved with it. Like, I was still involved back then, but just like, I was kind of like, oh, like other kids just learn from like textbooks.

(22:55):
Why aren't we doing that? And now this is like so much better than a textbook. The hydroponics project is just really fun. Like I get to learn a lot about chemicals and different plants and it's really different than just an average kind of garden where you use dirt. Like this is all through water and it's like a completely different learning curve, trying to experiment your chemicals and your nutrients and making sure everything is balanced. But I've had lots of fun with it. I think that it's like a great project. I've really like, I really enjoy hands-on learning and I think it helps a lot of other students and all of these projects to be able to do such hands-on learning instead of just traditional textbook learning. I think it really helps get the concepts through. I plan on being a teacher when I grow up and I think like, I definitely want a small system in my classroom. I think that'd be so cool to learn about like the different stages of plant growth and everything. And I think it's just like really good to teach students about like how you can be growing your own produce. Like you don't need to depend on all of these shipments from like so far away. Like you can grow it right in your house. Like it's, it's right there. It's easily accessible to you.

(23:57):
These projects had not only had an impact on the staff and students, but they've benefited the community as well. Mr. T told me about a bylaw that was changed because of the students.

(24:06):
There was a group of four students that went down to Olds. It was a conference arranged by Inside Education. It was called Cultivate and it was agriculturally based. Each school had to come up with a project and they came up with sustainable poultry as their project. So they essentially said, we want to encourage backyard poultry. Now in Myrnam, at the time there were bylaws to, I, I didn't realize this, but to actually have chickens in, in your backyard. And they ended up building this sustainable chicken coop and it could be, you know, the design could be copied now. And we realized the, the bylaws were there. The students went to town council and said, look, this is important. And at the time Edmonton was doing sustainable poultry and if Edmonton can do it, certainly, you know, a small town can do it here.

(24:47):
I asked him if he thought these sorts of projects were easier to implement in a small town.

(24:52):
We have lots of space here. That's definitely a commodity. That's, that's, that's important to have. The, the relationship too between the village and the school is, is so incredibly important. I've never experienced my entire lifetime such a collaborative effort between the, the village and the school and what's good for the village is good for the school and vice versa. They know that the school's at the heart of the community and having a facility like C-Tech that we could actually work in to do the project-based work is important. Prior to SeaTech, we would do our work in the, the other school shop and the Bay Door is enough to fit a car in, but it, it's a lot of projects that we would be doing. Like let's say the eco classroom building that's in like, you know, year two of the videos, we would have to do it in prefab forum. So we would design the trusses and build it inside and then take all the pieces outside and go assemble outside because you couldn't fit it through the door. You know, the Village isn't entirely backing us on this and it's, it's so neat to have that anything that that we need, we, you know, ask for help from the village and it's like, sure, how can we help you?

(25:51):
I also asked him what the biggest challenge was.

(25:54):
A big challenge is always time, you know, where we have a, you know, a certain amount of days, like the Tiny Home for instance. Our goal would be to get that done by June. It's been about a year all at this point. It took us a while to actually acquire the school bus and get building with it, but requires time and it, if we had more time to do things. But it's a matter of increasing capacity within the community, finding out how people could fit together and help out with the projects. And we've had, you know, donations come in, one of the families says, Hey, we've got a wood stove that's sitting in the shed for lots of years. Sure, absolutely. Bringing in as part of the tiny home, a countertop came from another family.

(26:28):
And if you had any advice for another school.

(26:31):
Just establish those relationships between the school and the community. And I know in a lot of small towns, they're like little gems scattered all over because they're, the relationships exist and it's not, you know, kind of what's in it, it for me or, you know, economics, like a lot of time we'll ask things from the village and there is no funds exchanged, just, you know, services rendered. We need help moving our greenhouse in the next couple weeks and they're gonna come in with like a hoe and they're gonna probably spend, you know, several hours and there won't be a dime exchanged over it. And it, it is just things work back and forth when the local Ag society, you know, wants some painting done of the bleachers in the arena. It's like absolutely sure we'll help out. And that's what it is and it's ownership and in the community, it's being part of the community and that's what community's all about.

(27:14):
And of course, I wondered what project they were tackling next.

(27:18):
Next year, I'm not sure what the project's gonna be. We're gonna get it out to the students and say, okay, where are your interests? And then based on that, if we apply for the A+ grant, again, it does involve energy and environmental sustainability. So it has to be something kind of within that realm, but they're gonna come up with something that benefits the community. That's the beauty of these things because it's not only just working on a project, but it's the perfect project when you can change your community.

(27:43):
Visiting New Myrnam school was such a treat. Everyone was warm and welcoming and seeing all the projects the students have created, how much they've learned and how it's impacted the community was amazing. I can't wait to see what they get up to next. And I hope their story inspires other communities to embrace a low-carbon future. Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Bartz. Here's the feeling a little less in over our heads when it comes to saving the planet. We'll see you again soon. In Over My Head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz in partnership with Environment Lethbridge. Original theme song by Gabriel Thaine. If you would like to get in touch, email info@inovermyheadpodcast.com.

(28:19):
I'm trying to save the planet oh will someone please save me?