ABOUT & APPLY  |  2011 WINNERS  | FAQ

ECO Canada Scholarship Winners

Join us in celebrating our current and past winners of the ECO Canada Scholarship.

Want to know what our 2010 winners have been up to since having won the ECO Canada Scholarship? LEARN MORE     

2011 ECO Canada Scholarship Winners

Andrew Wong 2011 Edit Petrovic Memorial Award – Burlington, Ontario	Alec Forest 2011 ECO Canada Scholarship Calgary, Alberta	Caitlin Stockwell 2011 ECO Canada Scholarship Victoria, British Columbia	Stephanie Knill 2011 ECO Canada Scholarship North Vancouver, British Columbia

ANDREW WONG – 2011 Edit Petrovic Memorial Award – Burlington, Ontario

Andrew’s fascination with the environment began when he was a young boy. His father would bring home educational environmental pamphlets, which instilled in him the value of self-education. Today, he values environmental education and action, and takes it upon himself to lead by example.

In grade 10, for example, when Andrew first noticed an abandoned greenhouse at his high school, he saw its potential to educate students about plant science. Throughout the remainder of his high school years, he led the restoration of the greenhouse, nurturing dedicated student volunteers and creating the Greenhouse Horticulture Society. Andrew and the horticulture society worked hard to grow and sell geraniums annually to raise money to improve the greenhouse and to fund local environmental organizations. He hopes to have instilled values of appreciation and commitment in the student volunteers.

Andrew is well known in his community for his love of the environment. Along with being the president of the Nelson Environment team, Andrew is involved with the BurlingtonGreen Youth Network, a network of youth from high schools across Burlington. This is a unique platform that allows students to get together and share ideas. He was involved in the planning of Burlington’s first and second environmental youth conferences to educate youth, and is currently planning the third annual conference.

Andrew will continue to build success at the University of Waterloo this fall where he will study environmental and urban planning. There he will follow his passion to ensure that communities are planned and functioning in a sustainable manner.
 

ALEC FOREST – 2011 ECO Canada Scholarship - Calgary, Alberta

Alec strives to educate his community, and to empower others to work in the environmental sector. He has extensive leadership experience related to the environment, and is sure to have a very successful future ahead of him.

Alec is the president of his school’s environmental club, and is the program coordinator for the Youth Earth Ambassadors (YEA), a program that connects high school environmental clubs and allows them to share ideas and combine their resources in order to bring about greater change than any could alone. During his time with YEA, Alec has hosted many projects in his community and has expanded the YEA network to include new schools and organizations. With his help, YEA now has a greater focus on both networking and reducing schools’ ecological footprints.

Under Alec’s leadership, YEA has established contact with the Carbon Zero Schools Foundation Canada Paper 4 Trees program, which will grant YEA schools 220 trees each year as part of their paper recycling. This will have a positive effect on the community, and offset the carbon emissions of the schools in the area. Alec was also involved in organizing interschool projects such as the annual YEA Bike-In, which engaged over 500 riders, as well as the Green Life Challenge and a Green Youth Gathering.

Alec’s environmental leadership to date has revolved around sustainability for individuals and organizations, but he is also passionate about animals. This is what led him to decide to study animal biology and ecology at the University of Alberta in September. His goal is to become a zoologist, which will allow him to study and preserve the wealth of biodiversity that our world has to offer.
 

CAITLIN STOCKWELL – 2011 ECO Canada Scholarship - Victoria, British Columbia

Caitlin has been involved in numerous environmental initiatives and clubs in her community, including the Sierra Club’s Youth Steering Committee, YesBC (Youth for Environment Stewardship), and the Green Party of Canada. She also worked hard to get funding to build an alternative energy supply for her school. However, her most significant environmental leadership experience was with an event called the CC350 (Climate Change 350), a bike relay that promotes sustainability and raises funds for climate change initiatives.

Caitlin organized the first CC350 event in 2010 with great success. It created a tremendous sense of community and was endorsed by the entire district. Attendees ranged from high-school, middle-school and elementary-school students to municipal members, police officers, and sustainable action groups. Caitlin also organized the second annual CC350 with over 100 cyclists (the capacity of the track). Schools from her school district and others from across the city took part. Over $8,000 was raised, which is going toward the installation of solar panels in September.

Caitlin will be attending McGill University, where she will be studying international development and political science, with the hopes of continuing on to study law. She hopes to pursue a career advocating for human rights and the environment. With the possibility of working in a field she is so passionate about, Caitlin is excited to start her post-secondary studies this fall. 
 

STEPHANIE KNILL – 2011 ECO Canada Scholarship - North Vancouver, British Columbia

Stephanie’s passion for the environment began with a walk through a park in her community. North Vancouver’s Mahon Park had been devastated by invasive species, which prohibited anything else from growing or inhabiting the affected areas. A once beautiful and diverse forest had been taken over, and biodiversity was almost non-existent.

Stephanie quickly understood the importance of humans coexisting with nature harmoniously through sustainable practices. She organized a school-based project to rehabilitate Mahon Park, while engaging students from her high school. The project involved removing invasive species and replacing them with native species. Stephanie and the other students donated over 450 hours of volunteer work and restored a section of the park to which they had not previously had access. The impact of their effort on the ecosystem was very obvious. By eradicating the invasive species, native species were able to flourish.

Along with her work at Mahon Park, Stephanie volunteers her time to many other environmental groups/organizations such as her school’s Green Team, the Lower Mainland Green Team, the BC Hydro Energy Ambassadors, and the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-up.

Stephanie is very passionate about protecting the environment. This is why she has chosen to study environmental sciences at the University of British Columbia this fall.