By Vanessa Bullwinkle

Project Learning Tree (PLT), the national environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation, recently funded 33 projects that engage students in service-learning projects that improve the environment of their schools and surrounding communities. The projects address community needs, provide opportunities for student leadership, connect to classroom curriculum, and involve the local community.

“By integrating service into the curriculum, students are learning about environmental and social issues in a real-life context,” said Al Stenstrup, Director of Education Programs for the American Forest Foundation. “From gardening with native plants to building outdoor classrooms for their schools, these kids are researching and planning action projects that enable them to apply their knowledge and develop critical thinking skills to solve real-world problems related to the environment.”

For the past 18 years, PLT’s Greenworks! program has provided merit-based grants to schools and groups that work with youth, empowering them to create gardens, plant trees, restore streams and wildlife habitat, improve energy efficiency, and more. The projects recently funded range from a garden to attract native pollinators in Hawaii, to a sugarhouse to make maple syrup in Maine, to a conservation area to restore threatened game birds in Pennsylvania.

The 33 grants announced by PLT include the following:

• In San Francisco, pre-K through teenagers involved with the Embarcadero YMCA will plan, develop, and maintain a garden on the rooftop of the Y building. In addition to the environmental benefits of the vegetation, the youth will harvest vegetables for the local community.

• In Calvert County, MD, second-graders will investigate the recycling habits of residents and help kick off a recycling program in every elementary school in their school district.

• In Jacksboro, TN, seventh- and eighth-graders will help build a nature trail adjacent to downtown. Their role is to learn about and plant native vegetation, as well as how to work with city officials and community groups.

• In San Antonio, TX, students in grades six through eight at Tejeda Middle School will form a “GREEN” club to help their school go green through composting, recycling, and beautifying the grounds.

View a full list of grants awarded.