The future is bright!

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of Grade Five students at Our Lady of Peace Catholic School, in Oakville, ON.  The students were in the middle of an Endangered Species Unit with their teacher, Mme. Falcone, who has been sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm about conservation with her students for a number of years.
During my presentation, I talked about what WWF is doing to help a number of species, including polar bears, black-footed ferrets, sharks and tigers.  We looked at life-size reproductions of a polar bear skull and bear claws, and talked about some of the challenges faced by species at risk, including climate change, pollution and habitat destruction. The children knew so much, and while I hope that I was able to share some new information, it’s really the students who taught me something, who gave me something to take away from the experience.
These boys and girls were very interested, engaged, enthusiastic, well informed, and open to new ideas. They ‘got’ the idea of how life on Earth is interconnected and how what we do – both good things and not so great things – impact it.  I could see their faces light up as they watched the slides of animals and could see the eagerness in their eyes as they asked their questions and offered their experiences; it was very inspiring. As I left the school, I was thinking about this young generation, our next generation of leaders, scientists, citizens….and I thought, the future is bright indeed!

Not only that, but these students are also great artists, which I discovered when they presented me with an outstanding hand-drawn and autographed poster of the WWF Panda (copyright symbols and all).  It’s on display at my desk – a great reminder of why we do what we do here at WWF.