Students in Langley envisioned the community’s future through their projects presented at the school district’s IDEA X Challenge.
Nine teams of students pitched their ideas to judges on what Langley might look like in 50 years, and three teams were chosen as winners and two honourable mentions.
Aldergrove Community Secondary’s SquareOne team was one of the honourable mentions for their project on reducing greenhouse gases in the community.
“We want to transform the fumes from the local transfer station in Aldergrove to be mixable with greenhouse fumes to cut them in half,” team member Avery Frew explained.
The team of three conducted research over four months and interviewed experts in the sustainability field, as well as their Indigenous support worker, about their concerns in Aldergrove.
“We believe by creating a stronger, sustainable, and diverse town, it will inspire youth to not only add to the community, but to stay in it,” Frew said.
Their goal was to create ideas attainable for Langley with minimal effort from the average citizen.
“Aldergrove has so much potential, with the smallest amount of focus it can shine and be brought to the forefront,” he added.
The team hopes their project inspires the Township to remember Aldergrove and consider Indigenous perspectives.
All three Grade 12 students will be attending university in the fall.
Team Radiant won for their project focused on constructing algae powered buildings in Willoughby and the benefits of hydrogen vehicles.
Ryan Qjan, Grade 11 student on the team from Walnut Grove, said they were inspired by a building in Germany powered only through algae walls.
“While our proposed ideas may be unattainable at the moment, we believe it’s an important discussion for the future — especially since Langley is a rapidly growing community,” Qjan said.
Winning team, SUStainable Chaos, focused on vertical farming and an underground pipeline system to transport household waste. They also presented ideas on implementing rainwater collection and rooftop farming on buildings.
Abhi Maheswaran, a Grade 10 student from Walnut Grove Secondary (WGSS) and team member, said they were inspired by what they learned in class.
“Actually be able to design a city that can incorporate what we learned with different solutions that we researched was a big factor in why we chose climate change and water pollution solutions,” Maheswaran said.
He said Langley is a big community and going through change, which is inevitable, but the future can look better if the ecosystem is respected and Indigenous perspectives are incorporated.
The next step for the project would be to create a specific timeline of how the features the team created could be implemented.
“It would be great to see some of these ideas in the future, not only in Langley but in other cities as well.”
Team Astro’s project focused on rezoning parts of Langley, improving the traffic light network, and adding street signs in Indigenous language.
Clement Cheung, team member and Grade 12 student from WGSS, said his team has a background in STEM and wanted to share their passion in a way that benefitted Langley.
“We decided to research ways to better traffic efficiency and clean energy when a large percentage of survey respondents shared a concern for traffic congestion and pollution,” Cheung said.
Nathan Pachal, Langley City mayor, said he was impressed that multiple solutions included incorporating Indigenous culture and language into their solutions — particularly Team Astro’s idea for Indigenous language on street signs.
“I thought, with our names and how important names are and how it connects us to this land, what ways would Langley City residents like to see that reflected?” Pachal said.
Pachal created a survey to hear feedback on the idea from Langley residents.
Winning teams received $5,000 each in scholarships, and honourable mentions received $2,500.
IDEA stands for innovation, design, entrepreneurship, and altruism and is hosted annually by the Langley School District.
READ ALSO: Langley students win awards for innovative creations at IDEA Summit
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