Category: Library Events

Red Dress Day

Ms. Haigh

May 5th is Red Dress Day. It is a day of action on behalf of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirit People in Canada where female identifying people are murdered at more than 10x the national average. 

 

 

 

 

Amnesty International has the following to say:

Indigenous women, girls and 2 Spirited people face a human rights crisis in Canada, the violence that they face amounts to genocide. It is not just a crisis – it is a national shame. Canada has built systems that disappear Indigenous women from the Indian Act to modern policing. These broken structures are doing what they were designee to do: erase Indigenous presence, silence Indigenous voices, and sever Indigenous futures.

Red Dress Day matters because it makes the invisible visible. It forces this country to confront the truth. It reminds us that every single life matters, that these lives still matter, and we will never stop fighting for justice.

 

If you would like to learn more about this day, below are some videos and podcasts that shed light onto this systemic issue. Please note that these resources contain some mature content and may include descriptions of sexual and physical assault.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More information can be found in the library and on the display in the foyer.

Escape Room Fun

Ms. Haigh

The library was transformed into Will Byers’ (Stranger Things) basement in 1984, for our first ever escape room in the library. The event took place April 14th – 20th and saw 14 classes come through to test their problem solving and lock cracking skills.

Students did not have to have any knowledge of Stranger Things to participate, but simply needed to locate and crack clues in various parts of the library to unlock 4 distinct lock boxes. Using the hive mind of their 3-5 person groups, most students were able successfully “escape” with a few extra hints along the way from Ms. Haigh. Thankfully, as a result, Will was save from being trapped in the Upside Down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This activity was adapted from Breakout EDU.

Student Vote

Ms. Haigh

In conjunction with the Federal Election which took place last week, students were given the opportunity to have their political voices heard in our Student Election facilitated by Student Vote Canada.

At Alpha we had 4 polling stations for classes to use to vote. The stations were run by volunteers from our own Student Government. Voting took place all day on Friday April 25th with students selecting from the four candidates in the Burnaby North- Seymour Electoral District.

 

 

The Candidates:

  • Terry Beech (Liberal)
  • Michael Charrois (NDP)
  • Mauro Francis (Conservative)
  • Jesse Fulton (PPC)

In total 644 of our students cast their vote, which is almost 50% of our student population. The breakdown locally was as follows:

  • 319 Liberal
  • 131 NDP
  • 150 Conservative
  • 28 PPC
  • 16 Rejected

While the clear winner at Alpha was Terry Beech of the Liberal Party, Federally, the student vote went Conservative. Further information about the results can be found on the Student Vote website here.

Human Library

Ms. Haigh

Alpha Secondary School held its first Human Library event, in over 10 years, on April 24th. The Human Library is a project created by the Danish youth organization Stop the Violence, in 2000. It is now operational in more than 60 countries. It’s purpose its to ​challenge societal prejudices and to help people form a better understanding of those who are different from them through conversation.

 

How it works is that members of the community with interesting life stories and intersectional identities volunteer to act as ‘books’. Our grade 11 and 12 students were then given the opportunity to sit down with the books and  ask them questions about their lives and identities. The group of books was varied in terms of age, race and sexual orientations. We had 14 books volunteer in total, with their identities ranging from an Indigenous Olympian, to a Queer Urban Planner to a retired Funeral Home Director who was also a Steampunk Professor.

 

 

 

In total 15 classes attend the all-day event, meaning over 300 students participated. Feedback from students was very positive, with most wishing they had more time so that they could have chatted with more of the books. One student even wrote,

“It was interesting to hear the perspectives and life experiences of people coming from unique environments. Their outlook showed me that everyone has their own book…humanity is a library and to discriminate would be simply missing out on some good stories.”

We thank all the students who participated and the teachers who signed their classes up for the event. We were pleased to see such a wonderful community building event take place in the library again, after such a long hiatus.

 

Alpha’s Book Club 2025

Ms. Haigh

This year Alpha is running its very own book club on Tuesdays at lunch in the library.

There are 2-3 books being read each month, and students can choose to read as many as they’d like.

The schedule of when books will be discussed is below. Please attend the meeting date(s) for the book(s) you want to chat about with your fellow bookworms. We can’t wait to chat about these books in the new year!

***Copies of the books can be found in the library. See Ms. Haigh to sign them out.

Library Murder Mystery

Ms. Haigh

Last week week, for Halloween, the Library Learning Commons held its annual murder mystery event. Classes were invited to try to solve the whodunnit, with students reading the clues, looking at the crime scene and analyzing evidence to determine which of the eight suspects did it. This year was the biggest turnout yet, with 18 classes (more than 400 students) participating. Many students were able to deduce that the killer was the character Peter and more than thirty were awarded prizes for giving a complete and complex motive and means. The grand prize winner for her excellent detective skills was grade 9 student Rhianne Li.