GREEN SCHOOL OBJECTIVE III: COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS, AWARDS & SPECIAL RECOGNITIONS
OBJECTIVE 3.1: COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
2022 - Endangered Species Coalition - Art Contest - Nineteen students spanning all grades from K to 5 participated in the Endangered Species Art contest. Students accessed a required list of either threatened or endangered plant and animal species within the US and used whatever medium they preferred. Fingers are crossed!
Summer 2021 - Girl Scout Troop Schoolyard Clean-Up - Girl Scout Troop 1305 and their families showed up on a warm summer morning to help beautify our school grounds. Mrs. Stewart, Ms. Eckert and Mrs. Young joined them.
2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 - Trout Unlimited Atholton has had an ongoing partnership with Trout Unlimited, running its Trout in the Classroom Program each year. All students in the school have benefited from this partnership, especially our 5th grade Troutkeepers, who learn about the Trout in greater detail and are responsible for caring for them by testing tank water conditions daily and keeping an eye on their development. Release Day is always a favorite event! Mr. Bryan, our dedicated Trout Unlimited volunteer, who takes care of us every year, does a great job of introducing our Trout - AND he's a macroinvertebrate expert, so we get to have him join us in our stream as well! He's the BEST!
2021 - Atholton Elementary School PTA- Panther Patio - Members of the Atholton PTA constructed and donated three picnic tables to an area of our school we call the Panther Patio. Students and staff members can now use this area for eating and working outside.
2021 - Girl Scout Troop 1266 - Benches - This dedicated group and their parents worked together to contribute two handmade benches to our playground, making getting outside an even more relaxing and enjoyable experience. All students love the benches, especially at recess.
Spring 2021 - Repainting Native Plant Markers - Troop 1266 was at it again! What would we do without them? This time they took home all 10 native plant marker rocks to repaint them using weather resistant paint. They went from dull to bright and beautiful. They even found a way to keep the original flower designs intact!
2018-2019 - Howard County Conservancy - Not only did the Conservancy provide us with a grant to secure enough native plants to refurbish our native garden, one of their naturalists also came out to look over the student-generated list of potential native plants for our garden. In doing so, we were able to refine out list and finalize placement for each of the different types.
Summer 2019 - AES Families were called upon to take turns caring for our newly planted native garden. During he hot months, the new plants needed watering in order to establish their deep roots. Each week, a different family or scouting troop signed up to pass the hose key along in order to keep our garden alive. What an effort! To inform each family about how to best go about caring for the garden, Mrs. Young made an instructional video sent to all families and troops signed up.
2019 - Clarks Ace Hardware - Rock Garden - When Atholton Green Ambassador students chose A River of Kindness as an art and outdoor school grounds project, local business, Clarks Ace Hardware, came to the rescue, donating many yards of edging, several bags of river rocks to be painted, and enough polyurethane spray to preserve the student-painted rocks.
2019 - Outdoor Classroom Restoration - Girl Scout Troop 76 - Paige and Laura renovated our outdoor classroom for their Girl Scouts Silver Award. Our outdoor classroom was overgrown and the benches needed to be replaced. While building, they dug 21 footer holes for the benches, built, shaped, and sanded 9 benches, attached the benches to the cement footers, AND replaced the mulch.
2018, 2019, 2020 - Atholton PTA - We are grateful our PTA sees the importance in promoting our Green School. Each year, they add our Greenwear to the spirit wear order form, allowing for Green School funds to be collected and managed by PTA. Students and staff are encouraged to wear their greenwear every Wednesday for Waste-Free Wednesday. One important purchase we make every couple of years with PTA funds is a very large Zero Waste Box, which we fill with empty glue sticks and send off to Terracycle to be upcycled.
May 2018 - National Bike to School Day - Partnering with Howard County Police Department
2018 - Earth Week Green Bingo - Every Earth Day Week, we strive to include at least one home piece throughout the week to connect the AES families with our Earth Day awareness goals. In 2018, the 4th grade Green Ambassadors came up with and created a Green Bingo game to send home with every family. Those families who completed, signed and returned their Bingo sheet were entered in a drawing to win either a plush Earth or the I Am Earth children's book. The turnout was amazing! As you can read in the announcements below, the Green Ambassadors also came up with a Show 'n Green opportunity. Students were encouraged to bring in something from home that shows how they use green practices in their household or as a family.
May 2017 - Plastic I.V. Caps Trout Mosaic - University of Maryland Medical Center nurses, one an AES parent, collected hundreds of colorful I.V. caps that would normally go to the landfill. They had heard of different hospitals collecting them and using the colorful caps to create beautiful mosaics. The nurses presented various projects they'd found on the internet, along with a meaningful video, to the fifth grade Green Ambassador students. They decided they would create a beautiful Rainbow Trout to hang above the Trout tank. After sorting the caps, they created a design and worked for many weeks to put together a magnificent Trout.
April 2017 - Earth Day Week Community Connection - 2017's AES family connections were meaningful and fun. It's wonderful the response we get from our students and their families when it comes to Earth Day Week at AES!
OBJECTIVE 3B: AWARDS & SPECIAL RECOGNITION
Spring 2019 - Howard County Conservancy Grant to Restore our Native Garden - We received a grant from the Howard County Conservancy, which we used to refurbish our native garden.
May 2019 - Student Environmental Action Project - Native Garden - Recognition by HCPSS Central Office for our Native Garden Refurbishment project.