Mr. Speaker, this is Earth Week and on behalf of an organization that is very active in my riding of Rosedale I would like to introduce to the House an important environmental education initiative.
The schoolground naturalization program is a national program of the Evergreen Foundation designed to transform schoolgrounds into natural outdoor classrooms. Many schools across Canada are presently landscaped with asphalt and concrete playing fields and are surrounded by institutional fencing. They look more like parking lots or prisons than schools.
These areas provide little educational value, few community advantages and no environmental or health benefits. Schoolgrounds need to be changed. They must become learning grounds by adding natural areas.
We must better understand the importance of creating better learning environments for our children and work to change our schoolgrounds from bleak expanses of concrete to areas of environmental significance and educational value.
This program of the Evergreen Foundation is doing that. I urge other members to support this initiative in their areas.