PLT Supports “Learning By Doing” with 26 GreenWorks! Grants

This year, students across the country will remove invasive species from forests, restore marsh habitat, build nature trails and outdoor classrooms, and create schoolyard gardens, thanks to Project Learning Tree’s GreenWorks! grants.

PLT recently distributed more than $24,000 in grants to 26 schools or youth organizations in 19 states. Since 1992, PLT has distributed nearly $1 million to fund more than 1,000 GreenWorks! action projects nationwide.  Proposals for the next round of grants will be due September 30, 2012.  Application forms will be made available in the summer from www.GreenWorks.org.

“GreenWorks! is the action component of Project Learning Tree,” said Jaclyn Stallard, PLT manager of education programs, in announcing the grants. “These student-driven projects bring learning to life as youth directly experience the application of new knowledge to the world around them.”

Upon hearing news of her grant to create a nature trail around the perimeter of Hillside Elementary School in Niskayuna, New York, kindergarten teacher Christine Mathews wrote to say, "PLT's support has got our kids bursting at the seams with enthusiasm and excitment about the journey we are taking this year."

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 Thornton, Colorado, seventh and eighth 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.
• 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 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 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.

For a list of all projects awarded, go to www.plt.org/2012-GreenWorks-grant-award-winners.