Project Learning Tree Supports “Learning by Doing” with 26 GreenWorks! Grants
February 3, 2012
Project Learning Tree Supports “Learning by Doing” with 26 GreenWorks! Grants
Washington, D.C. – Project Learning Tree (PLT), the environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation, announces it is distributing more than $24,000 in GreenWorks! grants to support student-driven environmental action projects. From restoring forests to creating marsh habitat, to planting gardens and building nature trails and outdoor classrooms, young Americans are taking part in “learning-by-doing” local environmental improvement projects across the country.
In the round of grants announced on February 3, 2012, 26 schools or youth organizations in 19 states will be awarded up to $1,000 each. Since 1992, AFF has distributed nearly $1 million to fund more than 1,000 GreenWorks!
action projects nationwide.
“GreenWorks! is the action component of Project Learning Tree,” says Jaclyn Stallard, PLT manager of education programs, in announcing the grants. “In these student-driven projects, youth become personally responsible for improving their environment, taking what they learn in the classroom and applying it to the real world.”
The grants, awarded through a competitive process from more than 100 applications submitted, involve students in all grades, preschool through college, and in settings that range from urban neighborhoods to rural communities. As examples of their creativity:
- In Lake Villa, Illinois, students at Lakes Community High School will launch a forest restoration project on several acres of woods on the school campus, currently overgrown with buckthorn and other underbrush.
- In Cleveland Heights, Ohio, students in grades 4 to 6 at Ruffing Montessori School will restore a marsh habitat at the Nature Center of Shaker Lakes. They will plan and implement activities to restore native species and learn how to scientifically document their progress.
- In Madison, Wisconsin, students in the afterschool program at Glendale Elementary School will reclaim an abandoned lot, creating an educational prairie and wetland.
- In Oxford, Maine, the Roberts Farm Preserve will involve area middle and high school students in a forestry and shelter construction project to harvest and mill local wood, then use the lumber to construct a shelter and outdoor classroom.
- In Thornton, Colorado, 7th and 8th graders at Achieve Academy will create a sensory garden on the school grounds. Students, working with a local gardening club and the school district maintenance department, will research native plants and urban wildlife. They will put several garden designs to a community vote, then build and maintain the selected design.
For a list of all projects awarded, go to www.plt.org/2012-GreenWorks-grant-award-winners.
Media contact: Vanessa Bullwinkle at vbullwinkle@forestfoundation.org pr 202.463.2472.
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About Project Learning Tree
Project Learning Tree® (PLT) uses forests as a window on the world and provides educators with environmental education curriculum resources that can be integrated into lesson plans for all grades and subject areas. PLT teaches students how to think, not what to think, about complex environmental issues, and helps them acquire the skills they need to make sound choices about the environment. Developed in 1976, PLT’s 50-state network includes more than 500,000 trained educators using PLT materials that cover the total environment. PLT is a program of the American Forest Foundation. For more information, visit www.plt.org.