St. Albert Supports Yellow Fish Road

The

City of St. Albert supports Yellow Fish Road. The City of St Albert unanimously voted in favor of providing on-going annual support for Trout Unlimited Canada’s Yellow Fish Road program.

St. Albert has been a Yellow Fish Road partner for over 12 years, but in 2017 Trout Unlimited Canada received an Environmental Initiatives Grant through the city to expand and grow the program. We then provided 44 presentations to 1,174 youth in seven different schools. Youth were provided with knowledge about their water, watershed and the problems and solutions to stormwater pollution.

All presentations aligned with the Alberta Program of Studies for schools and environmental badges with community groups. Youth brainstormed in classrooms how they can reduce chemical use and prevent chemicals from entering the waterways in order to protect our waters and the life within and around them. We motivated youth to take on their own projects and make changes around their homes to reduce water pollution. Teachers and students took their study further by inquiring, journaling and doing interdisciplinary classroom projects. We encouraged youth to volunteer to do our Yellow Fish Road action project. Five groups took action in the storm drain painting project to paint 454 storm drains and hang 1,810 informative door hangers in their communities around St Albert. YFR was also able to attend the Canada 150 City-wide Downtown Block Party in September, which was a huge success for positive engagement and interaction, seeing over 3,000 participants!

Trout Unlimited Canada’s new self-delivery model will be implemented for the 2018 season. We will encourage more storm drain painting events and have more kits available to teachers and leaders. 2017 saw more inquiries about the YFR program than ever before.  We hope to build on this momentum in the upcoming seasons. The storm drain painting component of the program had a wonderful ripple effect in the community as we were reaching not only groups of youth (and future adults) but the adults involved with the group, as well as the community at large, who might otherwise never have had an opportunity to learn the information provided by the fish hangers. Schools and local community groups such as Guides and Scouts and the Summer Nature Program with Big Lake Environment Support Society (BLESS) will become part of this new partnership. By having kit supplies and the presentation gear available it will enable them to take on a greater sense of responsibility for the problem of water pollution. They can implement changes in their own neighborhoods at their own pace and take ownership of the actions that may limit the contributions of pollutants to their local water body.