New Myrnam School

Revitalising a small town and building a sustainable future through environmental action

New Myrnam School, a public school in Myrnam, Alberta, Canada, has worked collaboratively with the Village of Myrnam and County of Two Hills to reverse the slow decline of its small rural community. With a groundbreaking programme aimed at addressing environmental issues and renewable energy, the school’s authentic, project-based learning has brought student engagement to new levels. The school's reputation has attracted new families and brought transformative possibilities to the community in the process.

Like many rural schools in the Canadian prairie provinces, New Myrnam School has faced population fluctuations due to the boom and bust nature of the oil industry. The declining student population year after year prompted the need for a change to ensure the school's future.

The school’s environmental programme began with a greenhouse extension project, integrated into the curriculum, where grade 7 students studied heat transfer and made modifications to enhance efficiency. The goal was to ensure the greenhouse could be used earlier in the spring and later in the autumn without the use of electric heaters and fans. Concurrently, grade 8 students designed a rainwater harvesting system, implementing a "first flush" mechanism to discard contaminated water. Collected fresh rainwater was then used for watering vegetables in the raised garden beds and the greenhouse without the need to further deplete groundwater reserves. Furthermore, grade 9 students developed a highly efficient hydroponic system, providing locally grown lettuce to reduce the school's carbon footprint, since the closest grocery store is a 20 minute highway drive to purchase fresh produce.

Building upon this success, New Myrnam School embarked on projects centred around renewable energy systems. Students researched, designed, and built various sources of renewable energy solutions providing electricity to an off-grid eco-classroom. Divided into teams, students focused on wind, solar, and biofuel solutions, offering recommendations to the town council.

Since then, the programme has included further research into hydroponic technologies and production capacity, as well as a fleet of electric golf carts, restored into sustainable modes of transportation, and a school bus, repurposed as a net-zero tiny home. Currently, the school’s ongoing "Leading Our Community Towards Net-Zero" project involves conducting an energy audit and improving the Village of Myrnam's CTEC facility’s HVAC control system and increasing the solar grid tied array to achieve Net-Zero.

Aside from the remarkable environmental results the programme has yielded, the hands-on, project-based learning approach has fostered a passion for learning and inspiring change in students. This has attracted collaboration with educators from neighbouring schools as well as new families into the area – a truly transformative impact on the school’s wider community.

If New Myrnam School wins the World's Best School Prize for Environmental Action, the school will expand the grid-tied solar array, further advancing the goal of transforming the CTEC facility into a net-zero building. This achievement will benefit the environment and ensure the long-term financial sustainability of the facility amidst rising energy costs.