Thirteen-year-old Adam Dickie died in 2007 after falling into Junction Creek and drowning in its fast-flowing water.
At the time, he was the 22nd recorded victim of the creek, which runs through the heart of Greater Sudbury both under and above ground.
Using the slogan “Where waters flow, do not go” for nine years, Conservation Sudbury has worked in elementary schools and educated more than 17,000 students on the dangers of playing or walking near fast-current water ways like Junction Creek.
Deputy Mayor and Ward 12 Coun. Jocelyne Landry-Altmann chaired the city's Junction Creek Safety Committee following Dickie's death. While there was an initial push to fence in the creek, she and the late Joe Cimino, also a city councillor, concluded that was not the answer.
“We came to the conclusion that an education program was the way to go to create a psychological fence,” said Landry-Altmann. “It's like an electric fence for your brain so that when you were anywhere near fast flowing water, you would get a flash in your brain that says 'no, this is not a good idea.'”
The committee worked with teachers and created a program that would be taught in the classroom to ensure that children would avoid the same fate as Dickie.
To encourage better engagement, Conservation Sudbury partnered with Petryna Advertising http://www.petrynagroup.com/ on a poster contest, and later, a video contest.
Each year, the contest challenges children in grades 4 to 8 to design and draw a poster illustrating the dangers of flowing water and submit scripts for a 30-second commercial. A jury reviews the submissions and selects the best poster from each grade level as well as the best overall among those, and the best script.
The poster selected best overall becomes a 20-foot-by-10-foot outdoor billboard while the winning script is turned into a television and online commercial.
Valley View Public School Grade 5 student Haydyn Sulston's poster design was selected best overall in this year's contest.
Her poster depicts a young girl being rescued from a stream by Millie, the muskrat, the mascot of the Fast Flowing Water campaign.
As promised, the poster was revealed June 19 on mobile outdoor billboard at Science North.
Millie also makes an appearance in the winning video by Marymount Academy Grade 7 student Karissa Kruk.
Her video shows Millie stopping a pair of girls from approaching a fast-flowing creek to wash off their muddy hands.
The other poster winners include École St-Dominique Grade 4 student Gabrielle Luoma; Valley View Public School Grade 6 student Elizabeth Richard; Marymount Academy Grade 7 student Sofya Mishchenko, and; Lansdowne Public School Grade 8 student Celeste Lafrance.
Grace Weston, a Grade 7 student at Marymount Academy, placed second in the video contest.
Each of the winners received a $250 Best Buy gift card as a prize.
For more information on the Fast Flowing Waters program, visit the initiative's website.
