Climate Action Figures
A safe place for youth to share steps they are taking to mitigate climate change.
Climate Action Figures
Season 3, Episode 7: Day and Colleen
John interviews Day and Colleen on their mentorship project with CPAWS. They discuss planting native lawns, environmental conservation, and hosting a workshop on November 16th. Also featured: Linda's QuickFix tip on bird and butterfly-friendly gardens.
00:00 Introduction to Climate Action Figures
00:28 QuickFix from Linda: Bird and Butterfly Friendly Gardens
01:10 Meet Day and Colleen
01:41 Youth Conservation Collective: An Overview
02:41 Day's Journey into Environmentalism
04:21 The Native Lawn Project
05:02 The Social and Environmental Impact of Lawns
07:13 Promoting Native Lawns and Gardens
09:42 Personal Climate Actions and Inspirations
13:46 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Events
CPAWS’ Youth Conservation Collective: https://cpaws-southernalberta.org/education/youth-experiences/youth-conservation-collective/
Back to Our Roots Event: November 16, 2025: 3:00-4:30pm, Giuffre Family Library, Calgary
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Hi, I Am Day
Colleen:and I'm Colleen.
Day:And you're tuned into Climate Action Figures!
John:Well hello and welcome to this week's edition of Climate Action Figures. My name is John Whidden, and today you get to meet Day and Colleen. But first this week's QuickFix, which is from Linda. Thanks Linda, you have sent us one or two other QuickFixes and we appreciate you sending those in. Linda says: plant bird and butterfly friendly shrubs and flowers in your yard and garden. Check out on the internet or at your local garden center, which plants are suitable for your climate zone and useful for attracting hummingbirds and others. Milkweed is, for example, the only plant that monarch butterflies use to lay their eggs. Brush piles may not look good to you, but to a nesting sparrow, it represents a new home. Healthy birds and insects are a sign of a healthy environment and they are fun to watch! Well, thank you so much for sending that in Linda, and welcome Day and Colleen.
Day:Hi.
Colleen:Hi. It's so nice to be here!
John:Uh, what do you think about that QuickFix?
Day:I think, it's definitely very relevant to our project and I, I love going, walking, seeing birds and butterflies. I even found, I've been finding lots of ladybugs in my garden lately, hiding in our dead leaves. So.
John:Perfect. That's always a good sign of a healthy yard, I would say, right?
Day:Yep.
John:we will get onto that project in just a moment. It is happening through a very interesting mentorship program and, uh, could you tell us a bit about that?
Colleen:CPAWS, which is the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, um, they're a nonprofit organization that has chapters all across Canada. this is the first year that the Southern Alberta chapter is doing the Youth Conservation Collective. It's like a, the pilot project. where high school students get paired with an experienced mentor and, an emerging mentor and they as a group choose a project that has to do with one of CPAWS', main action, projects that they're working on and campaigns. There's a bunch of groups doing different things, but the project we're focusing on is with the land use planning action campaign, um, through CPAWS. It's been very interesting and I think it's an amazing initiative I'm pretty sure they're coming back for a new year.
John:viewers and listeners, if you're interested, check it out. We'll put a link in the show notes, and you can check that out. Day, how did you find out about this program?
Day:I'm kind of a nepo baby honestly. My Parents are very interested in climate action and stuff, so my mom sent me a link to this, and there aren't very many people at my school, unfortunately, who are very interested in the environment or protecting the world from climate change. So I was like, this is a great place to find community. And that's, that's why I joined.
John:Oh, that's great. So tell us, Day, some of the things that you've, uh, learned or benefited from through this, uh, this mentorship program.
Day:I've got to learn so much more about, um, Calgary's natural environments'cause my family are mostly from the US, and I don't know, I didn't know very much about Calgary but now, now I know so much more, like I know about the Bow River's ecosystems, and the grasslands and the prairie. It's interesting to experience all that.
John:Colleen, for you, what have been some of the highlights of the mentorship program?
Colleen:Similar to Day, just finding community, um, with other people that care about the environment and are like slightly scared of climate change, but also want to do something about it and protect the resources. We have such an amazing planet and we're so lucky that we have everything here that we need to survive. So, that's been really nice finding community within that because. I have like some friends that are concerned about or just interested in it, the climate change and environment stuff, but I don't really
John:have a community
Colleen:around it, so it's been so nice to make that within this group.
John:Now this program has led, uh, I understand to the development of a project that you've been working on. Day, can you tell us about that project?
Day:Yeah, we've been, um, really interested in the native lawn thing and what we were thinking about is why do we have non-native lawns to begin with? Why are we planting this grass that needs a ton of water and isn't good for the soil. and so we've been tracing the history and social implications of that. there's all kinds of things that tie it back to slave labor and, like monarchy and stuff like that. And it's really interesting to learn about all that. And we're hosting a workshop to teach people about native lawn planting and the social implications of it.
John:Now before we go on, I have to ask you, what is the connection between slavery and lawns?
Day:When the colonizers came over, from Europe to North America, it was considered like a sign of status if you didn't have to have food in your garden, you just had like green grass and whatever, but these gardens actually or not gardens, these lawns actually require a lot of care. and oftentimes the wealthy colonizers would enslave native people or bring over people from Africa to tend to their gardens and their households, which is obviously wrong.
John:Wow, that's fascinating. And tell us some more about what, uh, you hope to teach people about lawns through this, uh, program you've set up.
Day:I think a lot of people kind of, they walk out the door, right? And then they walk past their lawn and they don't think about it. I want people to think about all the natural aspects of their world and how they connect to human history and natural history.
John:No wonder you thought this was the perfect QuickFix today, it was a great segue into your, uh, the project that you've chosen. So in your project you're gonna teach people about lawns. is there a downside to lawns? What exactly are you suggesting to people about lawns?
Colleen:Lawns are basically a waste of space and water. Um, did you know that in the summer in Calgary, people use exorbitant amounts of water just to water their lawns? Um, and last year with the waterline break, um, in Calgary and all the, limits on water. for watering lawns. I think that was kind of a wake up to people of how important conservation of water is. People want them to be green and perfect, and so a lot of pesticides and herbicides are used. and so those chemicals get into the Soil and get into the groundwater and just continue the polluting cycle. They make it more difficult for soil to be renewed, and a lot of the times people bring in like, non-native ornamental plants and they're beautiful, don't get me wrong, but the insects and birds, aren't adapted to those plants and bushes and everything. The insects don't have anything to eat. And also during our event that's coming up on November 16th, at the Giuffre Family Library, we have Kaylee Schmidt, being our guest speaker, and she owns Seed to Sage, which is a landscaping company, she focuses on increasing inner city biodiversity. I worked with her a couple summers ago and literally got to remove people's lawns like they obviously asked us to and paid us, but um, were helping like take out lawns and we would plant native plants. And food bushes and trees and just create little native ecosystems, and it was so cool, and Kaylee is so knowledgeable we're so lucky she's gonna be, in our event on the 16th.
John:great to have that expertise. Now, Day, if you had your own as much, uh, resources as you wanted to create whatever you wanted around your house, what would you do instead of a lawn?
Day:It depends how much land I had. If I had lots of land, I would just, I would have a forest or whatever ecosystem was there naturally. Um, but considering that I live in a city and a lot of the listeners probably live in a city, I think an ideal space if you have time, is like a garden, because that can save you money on food, if you're using plants that are non-invasive and maybe you have like garden beds, if you don't have a lot of time and you just want a regular looking lawn, since we're on kind of near the grasslands, you can find native grasses that don't need as much water. That will also adapt to your lawn.
John:Great suggestions. Now you've got this message about lawns and what you might do instead of lawns. Uh, how do you intend to get this out to people?
Day:We've been running a social media page, um, and hopefully we continue to run that after the project deadline. But mainly we're hosting that workshop on the 16th, is an educational project. We're hoping to get a lot of people involved, and interested in planting their own gardens or native lawns. At the workshop we're also planning on writing letters or postcards to politicians because Jyoti Gondek, when she was mayor, started an initiative to, replant a lot of Calgary's green spaces and make them more native. And we want that to be continued.
John:Day, when you think about your past, obviously you're very interested in the environment, what got you started down that road?
Day:A lot of my family is really interested in conservation and climate stuff. but I would say that it's mostly my aunt and uncle. They live in like this rural area of Montana and a lot of times when we go visit them, we go on these long walks and, they have Saskatoon berries that you can pick and you can like ski from their house and it's, it's so beautiful and they maintain the land so well. I find that like inspiring.
John:Cool. And it was a banner year this year for saskatoons, right?
Day:Yeah.
John:It was amazing. I still have some in my freezer from this harvest this year. How about you, Colleen? What got you started down an environmental path in your life?
Colleen:It was my family too. I grew up on an acreage outside of Calgary, when I was growing up, it was an aspen forest um, and we also had saskatoons and my dad maintained it so well, just like the natural pathway systems and, um, the natural ecosystem. And so we were outside gardening, we had like three huge vegetable gardens. Like I just, was just like raised the forest and helping my parents and stuff. So I just think that's where it came from.
John:It's so important for all of us to get out into natural spaces to help us appreciate them, isn't it? Now, before we let you go today, uh, I would love to hear what you've each chosen for your climate action. So let's start with Day. What's your climate action?
Day:Mine's something really small, kind of, but of my family does it. When we go to restaurants, we never really finish our food. Um, and so we always bring containers'cause the takeout containers at restaurants are really wasteful and
John:and sometimes can't even be recycled. So, uh.
Day:Yeah.
John:Sometimes they can, sometimes they can't. That's a great, a great plan. We do that as well, and I, you know, what I find about that, Day is that when I have a container, I won't stuff myself because I really don't like to leave food behind. You know, wasted food seems like a travesty. So I will, when I know I have a container there, I'll just eat as much as I need to and then the rest goes in the container and I have a great lunch for tomorrow, right?
Day:Yeah.
John:Colleen, what have you chosen for your climate action?
Colleen:well in Marda Loop and so it's such a central walking community and really good access to transit, um, so I don't have a car. So I take the bus everywhere and Uber, sometimes. A good tip is always try to click the electric Uber because then it's in a car that's either EV or hybrid. Um, and I'm sure one day I'll get a car, but then it'll be a hybrid or an electric. So just little things you can do. And I walk everywhere too. It's good exercise.
John:Healthy and a pro Uber tip. It's great to have, uh, tips for our Uber users out there. Day. Last question for you. What gives you hope?
Day:This is of a funny answer because a lot of people wouldn't consider this hopeful, but, what gives me hope is cockroaches because, supposedly they've been around for a really long time. They've survived, I don't know, probably an ice age, maybe like meteor strikes, and so it makes me think that even if we totally wreck everything, life kind of finds a way, you know, on, on earth anyway.
John:That is a very hopeful message, and Colleen, how about you? What gives you hope?
Colleen:Um, honestly, it's people like Day like youth, who actually care and are getting involved and wanting to do projects like this because you guys will become leaders in your communities and you inspire other young people. You inspire me, you inspire people older than you, um, and you're not run, you're not
John:afraid to make a
Colleen:change or make
John:a diference
Colleen:or be loud. So you guys give me hope.
John:Well, that is certainly something to be hopeful about. thank you so much for being here, Colleen and Day and all the best in your project. Uh, give us the date again on that and location for it.
Day:November 16th Giuffre Family Library. Be there!
John:And that's in Calgary, right?
Day:Yes.
Colleen:It's in Marda Loop on 14th Street and 32nd Ave.
John:We will put it all in the show notes, so if anybody's interested, they can get out and check it out. If you've enjoyed this episode today to our viewers and listeners, please share it with someone you love or someone you just even mildly like. We will be back again next week, same time, same place to hear from another climate action figure. Until then...
Colleen:Go figures!