By Sheldon Spackman

Local students take part in Healthy Active Schools Symposium

Oct 24, 2018 | 2:36 PM

Well over 400 grade four to 12 students gathered at CrossRoads Church in Red Deer on Wednesday for the annual Healthy Active Schools Symposium (HASS). 

Lorna Muise, Team Lead for the School Health Promotion Team with Alberta Health Services (AHS), says it’s an event put on by AHS, Ever Active Schools and AMPED2PLAY which aim to promote health and wellness while giving students an opportunity to share their ideas and have their voices heard.

“Today, we have 50 schools from five different school divisions who are here to celebrate and share what they’re doing to create healthy school environments,” explains Muise. “It includes Chinook’s Edge, Red Deer Public, Red Deer Catholic, Wild Rose and Wolf Creek.”

She says some of the event’s activities encourage students to step out of their comfort zones and explore new ideas.

“A lot of our sessions are not traditional sessions, we don’t run traditional sport activities at this event,” she explains. “We’ve got the ‘Greenest School in Canada’ here presenting from Lacombe Composite High School, talking about how they’ve ‘greened’ their school. We’ve got five different groups from Red Deer College here doing non-traditional activities from communication to hula-hoop games and other schools like Mother Teresa School talking about their Kind Kid Club and Delburne School talking about what makes their school great.”

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Muise points out representatives from the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum and 2019 Canada Winter Games Host Society are also part of the event.

“This is about, ‘How do we teach students, how do we engage students, how do we make them feel like they’re part of something?’” asks Muise. “We know that when students feel connected and when they feel acknowledged and supported, when administrators and teachers know their names, they’re going to excel in school. So this is the piece that helps our kids feel like they belong to something bigger and helps them thrive and be successful in school.”

Muise hopes the students that take part feel energized, excited and reaffirmed that what they’re doing is making a difference in their school.

“I hope that they go back with at least one great idea that they want to try in their school this year,” says Muise. “What I’m really excited about this year is the partnership with Red Deer College and the student groups that have come out. I want all these kids to walk out of here today not only excited and enthusiastic about what they’re doing but with a desire and mindset that they can be a student at Red Deer College because they’ve already been a student of those instructors today.”