Congratulations to Battlefield High School Advanced Placement Environmental Science Teacher Karen Carney and students in her sustainability and renewable technologies class for winning four EcoRise Grant awards. EcoRise is a nonprofit that aims to unlock the power and potential of youth to design resilient communities of the future.
The sustainability and renewable technologies class is an authentic, problem and project-based class. Students work to understand and find local solutions to global environmental and energy issues. They submitted their grant applications to EcoRise in the form of videos.
EcoRise awarded funding, totaling just under $1,100, for four of the projects submitted by Battlefield High students. Those include the following:
-
Enhancing
the
outdoor
classroom
at
the
school
by
planting
trees,
a
butterfly
garden
and
building
bird
boxes.
These
improvements
will
provide
shade
and
habitat
and
encourage
more
use
of
the
space
by
teachers.
This
project
was
designed
and
submitted
by
junior
Bryson
McNeil
and
senior
Alex
Hewitt.
-
Installing
rain
barrels
to
catch
water,
thereby
using
less
treated
water.
The
barrels
not
only
make
for
more
efficient
use
of
water,
but
save
the
school
money
as
well.
The
project
was
designed
and
submitted
by
seniors
Geoffrey
Carlisle
and
Anna
Velardi.
-
Converting
unused
public
space
into
a
school
herb
and
vegetable
garden
to
be
used
by
the
culinary
class.
This
project
was
designed
and
submitted
by
seniors
Arley
Lausin
and
Carissa
Kochan.
- Improving Battlefield's indoor air quality and aesthetics with plants for interior classrooms that have no windows. This project was designed and submitted by junior Joseph Jaghori and sophomore Mohad Nasr.
Other projects submitted included a solar-powered awning, motion-censored lights, corn-based cutlery, and improvements to address traffic congestion in the school parking lot.
"We are proud of the hard work and research the students put into these grant applications," shared Kizzy Hannibal Xolani, program manager at EcoRise. "We can tell they learned a lot."
The funded projects will be implemented in the 2020-21 school year.