A Note from Jane

Reuse Project Ideas

• Make Trash–to-Treasure Art projects.
  Oakview Elementary school art teacher, Moraima Rosario (pictured below), is a master of making fun upcycled projects. Lately, she has been creating hats to keep her students both inspired and entertained.

• Upcycle Items for STEM projects.
  Each year, Kristin Bullington’s students at the Richland Two Institute of Innovation (R2i2) competes in the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Competition.
  
  This year, her students are making a low-cost sensor (pictured below) that tracks close contacts for schools and sends those interactions to a secure database. They hope to reduce the time burden on school nurses and eliminate recall bias to reduce the number of people in quarantine.
  
  Based on what they learned from a sustainability project last year, the students decided to make this new project sustainable by making the charger from old plastic storage containers and using solar power to charge the batteries.

• Reuse orange peels to make healthy classroom cleaners (pictured below) that kill germs. Directions here.

• Collect shoes to reuse
  Keep the Midlands Beautiful encourages schools to collect gently used or new shoes for their annual shoe drive fundraiser April 1 - June 1. The donated shoes will be redistributed through Funds2Orgs to support micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries. Interested schools can contact the KMB staff to have a collection bin delivered to their school.

Beyond Reusing

Awards

1. EPA Award Nominations due April 30
   
   - The President’s Environmental Youth Awards (PEYA) recognize outstanding environmental stewardship projects from grades K-12 by promoting environmental awareness and encouraging community involvement. The EPA will select up to two winners in each of EPA’s 10 Regions – one regional winner for grades K-5 and one regional winner for grades 6-12. The winning projects will be highlighted on EPA’s website. All student projects must be sponsored by at least one adult over the age of 21. If the sponsor is not a teacher, the project must have a teacher as a co-sponsor. The application and eligibility information is available on EPA’s PEYA page
   
   - The Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators (PIAEE) recognizes outstanding K-12 teachers who employ innovative approaches to environmental education. Up to two teachers from each of EPA's 10 regions, from different states, will be selected to receive this award. Teachers will receive a Presidential plaque and an award of up to $2,500 to be used to further professional development in environmental education. Winning teachers’ local education agencies will also receive awards of up to $2,500 to fund environmental educational activities and programs. Next year’s winners will be highlighted on the EPA’s website. Application and eligibility information is available on EPA’s PIAEE page.
    
2. Richland County Conservation Educator of the Year nominations are due April 30. 

Contests

1. Richland County will accept entries for their K-12 Youth Conservation Poster Contest until April 30. This year’s theme is “Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities.”
    
2. The South Carolina Young Filmmakers Project is now accepting entries for their annual contest for students in grades 9-12. The deadline to enter is March 22. More details can be found here. Please share any eco-themed films with Green Step Schools.

Gardens

• March 8 begins the spring “Gardening for SC Educators” online course brought to us by Clemson University and SC 4H. Details and registration can be found here.
   
• March 17 is St Patrick’s Day and what could be more Irish than potatoes? The most recent Garden Box from Sal’s Ol’ Timey Feed & Seed includes three varieties of specialty potatoes: purple, hot pink, and gold. I have laid them out in a cool room so the eyes can grow and will then follow Sallie’s planting instructions to grow pots of beautiful potato vines, and later, some tasty potatoes.

Grants

• Harbison West Elementary School and Irmo High School are participating in the 2021 School Garden & Education Assistance program, created to encourage schools to start including locally grown food in school menus. The two schools were selected along with 18 other schools statewide by the South Carolina Department of Education and South Carolina Farm to School.
   
• Clear Dot Charter School in Columbia received a $5,000 environmental stewardship grant from Dominion Energy to grow coral and later plant it along the state’s coastline. The coral is growing in a cold water South Carolina native reef tank, which is one of 16 fish tanks in the school. This school is one of 118 organizations selected for this year’s Dominion Energy environmental stewardship grants.

Scholarships

• Apply before March 5 for one of 175 Carolina Community Foundation Scholarships.
• Apply before March 15 for one of 50 State Fair $6,000 Ride of Your Life Scholarships.
• Apply before March 15 for a Paper Stock Industry Scholarship, up to $5,000, for students whose parents work in the paper recycling industry.

• Virtual Summer Institute for Climate Change Education, Climate Generation, and the Teach Climate Network. Join a network of teachers from across the country July 28-30 to learn new tools, skills, and resources to teach climate change in any subject area. Registration is $250 and scholarships are available. Apply now. The course includes 20 hours of Continuing Education credit.

Virtual Learning

Webinars

• Conservation Education Conference on Virtual Learning by the Association for Fish & Wildlife Agencies.  March 2-4 (1pm-4pm) $25 Register here.
   
• Pollinator Conservation Webinar by SC DHEC’s Champions of the Environment and EEASC. This free virtual event for formal and informal educators will be held on March 18 from 4 pm-5:30 pm. Register here by March 15.