Eco-Green Celebrates Twenty Schools Working Their Way Towards Green Flag Status Through STEAM and Sustainability Education

The National Wildlife Federation’s Eco-Green program is celebrating a decade of supporting schools as they implement robust STEAM and sustainability projects at their school campuses. Each school receives an action grant, is paired with a mentor, participates in professional development, and utilizes the EcoSchools U.S. platform to certify their school Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Green Flag. A broad coalition of educators, students, parents, and GM mentors support each project’s implementation, and this year five schools earned the highest honor—Green Flag certification! Other schools are certifying at the Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels.

Here are a few of this year’s Green Flag recipients and their stories.

Hull Prairie Intermediate had multiple Eco-Green projects running, all of which were STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) based. In Life Science students planted in the garden, raised trout, maintained the school’s native prairie, and participated in BioBlitz and citizen science projects. Students analyzed data about marine debris by cataloguing marine debris diverted from the river and took water quality measurements along the Maumee river. They collected over 305 pieces of trash. Students also put together the garden tower for indoor hydroponics, maintained the tank parameters for raising the trout, and assembled the garden beds for the outdoor garden.

Hull Prairie collaborated with community partners to introduce students to several careers this year. This included visits and talks from a GM Environmental Engineer, Storm Water Director, CEO of Partners for Clean Streams, and a local farmer who is implementing green practices on his large-scale commercial farm.

Aerospace Natural Science Arts and Technology (ANSAT), is a career tech academy that builds skills in natural resource management, animal sciences and urban agriculture. Their students have restored a Hill Ditch waterway on the campus and maintain the greenhouse with a large living collection of plants and animals. Dozens of students work with community partners like Toledo Zoo, Toledo Metro parks, universities, the EPA, and other schools to perform meaningful projects and benefit our environment. For their Eco-Green project, they worked with City of Maumee, Maumee schools, Hawkins Elementary, Toledo Metroparks, Xcite Learning and the Natural Wildlife Foundation to raise over 1000 trees that were distributed in the community (planted to improve shade coverage in the City of Maumee) and helped restore Hill Ditch’s ecosystem. This has had impacts on biodiversity, soil and water quality and erosion control. Students also raised trout in the classroom and released them into a local pond at Scott Park. Students collected data through this process and were able to present at a science research symposium at The Toledo Zoo this year, and shared their success with many other students and schools in the NW Ohio area. ANSAT had partners from Lucas Co Engineers, local greenhouse operations, other TPS schools, the FFA, OSU Extension and more speak to students about green STEAM careers.

Students at GESU Elementary and Middle School in Detroit, MI asked how they can offset their carbon dioxide production produced from student commutes. Students worked closely with their GM mentors Saloni Patel and Kaitlyn Drittler to develop a formula that helped them calculate staff and students travel 2666 miles each day to/from GESU and produce 2354.90 KG of CO2 per day. They are working on installing solar panels that will offset this amount of CO2 use. GESU also planted trees and 300 native plants along their new parking lot.

GESU student continued to maintain their cafeteria compost program. They sort their cafeteria waste to reduce the amount of waste in the cafeteria and compost a portion of their waste. The 4th and 5th grade science club calculated how much they have reduced their trash by weighing the amount of trash that is discarded daily and compared this amount (6.5lbs) with the amount of trash that was discarded before we started this program (125lbs). The students used math skills to calculate the reduction in waste and wrote letters to the local NBC affiliate and were showcased on the local news.

We celebrate the accomplishments of these three schools as they reached the Green Flag, representing the highest EcoSchools certification. For schools to certify at the Green Flag level, they must demonstrate that their environmental program is well-established and that environmental learning and action is a defining element of school culture. We also celebrate all 20 schools who who participated in Eco-Green, eight who certified as Green Flag, two at the Gold level and two at the Silver level, demonstrating a sustained commitment to STEAM education and sustainability. We are also grateful to our partners at General Motors, who supported our schools with 20+ GM mentors along the way, and we look forward to the continued impact of Eco-Green.

To learn more about Eco-Green, head over to our website or the EcoSchools U.S. YouTube channel where you will find more stories like these and further information on how to get involved.