Eastern Kentucky PRIDE

Personal Responsibility in a Desirable Environment

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PRIDE awards $119,155 for environmental education

Eastern Kentucky PRIDE has awarded $119,155 for environmental education projects that will impact 75,536 students during the 2017/18 school year.

The funding was awarded to educators across 41 counties of southern and eastern Kentucky through the PRIDE Environmental Education Grant Program, which was made possible by a grant to PRIDE from the Appalachian Regional Commission. Educators applied for the grants, and PRIDE selected the grant recipients through a competitive review process.

Scroll down for a list of grant recipients.

The grants can be used for a variety of educational activities that help students appreciate and care for the environment and to serve their community.

“From preschool to college, students of all ages will be participating in these hands-on learning activities, and we even have several projects for adults, such as Master Gardeners,” said Tammie Wilson, PRIDE President and Chief Executive Officer.

“Some students will be growing gardens at school, and others will be building habitats for bats, birds, butterflies, and bees,” Wilson continued. “Still others will be monitoring water quality in local streams. Many projects involve students running recycling programs at school.”

“I want to congratulate the grant recipients and thank the educators who are leading these projects,” she said.

“You are making a difference by opening our students’ eyes, hearts, and minds to caring for our region’s incredible natural resources. You also are helping your students grow academically through hands-on activities that allow them to practice key skills, such as math and problem-solving. Environmental education really is a great investment for students and our region.”

Promoting environmental education is a key mission for PRIDE, which is a nonprofit organization. PRIDE contributes to the economic and cultural growth of southern and eastern Kentucky by improving water quality, cleaning up solid waste problems, and advancing environmental education, in order to improve living conditions for its residents while enhancing the potential for tourism industry growth in the region.

Since 1997, PRIDE has awarded 1,609 Environmental Education Grants that impacted 892,834 students across the region. Schools have used PRIDE funds for a wide variety of activities, such as building outdoor classrooms, nature trails, wetlands, and greenhouses.

 

2017/18 PRIDE Environmental Education Grant Recipients, by County

Adair County

Adair County Primary Center – $2750 – The Adair County Primary Center will use the grant to create a recycling program for paper, cardboard and plastic. Each classroom will receive a recycling bin. PRIDE Club students will collect paper and plastic from each classroom daily and place it in pickup collection bins outside the school. They will also gather litter from the school campus.

Bell County

Frakes School Center – $2368.35 – Frakes School Center will use its grant for a series of mini-projects for fourth and fifth grade students. The topics covered will include owls, soil, energy, waves, and air and water power. The grant will pay for the materials needed for the lessons, including microscopes and hotplates.

Breathitt County

Breathitt High School – $2750 – Breathitt County High School’s Agriculture Department will improve the current Agricultural Project Based Work Areas by running water to the high tunnel, securing new bench tables for the greenhouse, and purchasing greenhouse equipment and supplies.

MKCAP – Breathitt – $2750 – Breathitt County’s MKCAP Head Start will educate children and their families about the importance of recycling and caring for our environment, as well as to lead Earth Day activities.

University of Kentucky – $2450 – The University of Kentucky will host a one-day educational training at its Robinson Forest and the Robinson Center for Appalachian Resources Sustainability, which are located in  Breathitt County. The event will engage the region’s science teachers and 4-H agents in learning about the importance of the bat populations of southeast Kentucky and what can be done to help conserve these impacted populations.

Casey County

Casey County High School – $2748 – Casey County High School will expand its chicken farm on campus. The grant will be used to buy a brooding building for chicks and construct a bin to compost the chicken manure and garden scraps. The school currently has 35 laying hens, and the eggs are used in five schools. Students also raise 200 meat birds every eight weeks that are used in the high school cafeteria.

Liberty Elementary – $1346.97 – Liberty Elementary School will buy materials for a student recycling program. Each sixth-grade student will receive the book Planet Patrol: A Kids’ Action Guide to Earth Core and learn how they can make a difference through recycling. Recycling bins will be added in classrooms and throughout the school. A PRIDE Club will be formed to promote the concept of personal responsibility for the local and global environment while building school and community pride.

Clay County

KCEOC Community Action Partnership – $2750 – KCEOC will install a Hydration Station at the Clay County Child Development Center in Manchester. The station will encourage re-usable containers for drinking water, which complements the center’s ongoing recycling program and clean environment curriculum. Books will be purchased to support that curriculum.

Red Bird Mission Christian School – $2750 – The Red Bird Mission Christian School will implement a water quality project. Students will get out of the classroom and into the water, performing hands on sampling of macro-inverterates. Students will identify the samples and, based on the species found, will be able to conclude the health of the stream.

Cumberland County

Cumberland County Conservation District – $2750 – The district will use the grant to replace and add to the native plants in the pollinator gardens and butterfly gardens at the elementary school, public library, and conservation district office. The grant also will pay for bird and bat houses, feeders, seeds, and habitats, as well as tools, a tool shed, and a potting table. The district will buy chairs and benches for students to use during environmental events at the gardens.

Floyd County

Prestonsburg High School – $2750 – The school will build an outdoor classroom.

Harlan County

Harlan County Conservation District – $2700 – The Harlan County Conservation District will send 270 students to the Pine Mt. Settlement School Environmental Day Camp.

KCEOC Community Action Partnership – $2750 – KCEOC Community Action Partnership will install a Hydration Station at the Verda Child Development Center in Evarts. The station will encourage re-usable containers for drinking water, which complements the center’s ongoing recycling program and clean environment curriculum. Books will be purchased to support that curriculum.

Johnson County

Paintsville High School – $2750 – The high school will purchase greenhouse equipment and supplies for its newly constructed greenhouse, where native plants and heirloom vegetables will be grown and then transplanted into raised flower beds. The aim is to attract pollinators to the flower and vegetable beds and produce vegetables that the school’s foods classes can use to prepare meals. The grant also will be used to maintain bird feeding stations and replace several bluebird and wood duck nesting boxes within the school’s outdoor classroom.

Knox County

Barbourville Independent Schools – $2189.55 – Barbourville Independent Schools will use a $2189.55 grant to further its goal of taking learning outside. The grant will pay for tables and benches for students to use while working on educational projects or observing animals in the outdoor gardens. New recycling bins will be added for cans and plastic bottles.

KCEOC Community Action Partnership – $2750 – KCEOC Community Action Partnership will install a Hydration Station at the Cannon Child Development in Cannon. The station will encourage re-usable containers for drinking water, which complements the center’s ongoing recycling program and clean environment curriculum. Books will be purchased to support that curriculum.

Laurel County

KCEOC Community Action Partnership – $2750 – KCEOC Community Action Partnership will install a Hydration Station at the Laurel Clay County Child Development in Corbin. The station will encourage re-usable containers for drinking water, which complements the center’s ongoing recycling program and clean environment curriculum. Books will be purchased to support that curriculum.

Colony Elementary School – $1300 – Colony Elementary School will purchase materials for a tool shed, tools, and native plants as part of the school’s ongoing effort to create numerous outdoor educational opportunities in daily studies in order to raise students’ awareness of their personal connection to the environment.

London Elementary School – $2750 – London Elementary School will install a greenhouse to grow plants, which will help students learn how to grow their own food, learn how to maintain a healthy lifestyle, develop college and career readiness in the area of agriculture/horticulture, build relationships with parents and the community, and fund the school science program.

North Laurel Middle School – $2,098 – North Laurel Middle School will invest in several projects, including continuing its recycling program, growing a spring garden, adding to its buttefly garden, raising and tagging monarch butterflies, exploring beekeeping with the school’s first hive, starting Project FeederWatch for winter bird watching, continuing its aquaponics projects, and growing baby chicks.

Lee County

Lee County High School – $2750 – Lee County High School will buy books and multi-media material, as well as resource kits and materials needed for hands-on environmental projects and Earth Day projects.

MKCAP – $2749.31 – Lee County’s MCKAP Head Start will buy educational kits, Earth Day materials and a storage shed for the outdoor classrom.

Leslie County

Leslie County Fiscal Court – $2750 – The Leslie County Fiscal Court will host a two-day workshop on why to use and how to build rain barrels.

Magoffin County

Magoffin County Cooperative Extension Service – $2,750 – The extension service will educate local students about butterfly metamorphosis and the importance of pollinator species, working with schools to build butterfly gardens.

North Magoffin Elementary – $2,050 – In partnership with the Magoffin County Cooperative Extension Service, students will build a butterfly garden and care for caterpillars while learning about the metamorphosis process.

McCreary County

McCreary County Middle School – $2744.52 – McCreary County Middle School will expand its recycling program, buy a classroom hydroponoic growing system and buy educational kits

McCreary County Academy – $2709.25 – The McCreary County Academy will construct an outdoor classroom and to buy environmental education kits and soil classes samples.

McCreary County Extension Council – $2750 – The McCreary County Extension Council will buy supplies for its 4-H Bee Club and send 80 seventh-grade students to the annual three-day, two-night McCreary County Environmental Education Camp at the J.M Feltner 4-H Camp in London.

Metcalfe County

Metcalfe County Middle School – $1289 – Metcalfe County Middle School will place recycling stations and bins throughout the school.

Morgan County

Morgan County 4-H – $2700 – The grant will be used to construct blue bird boxes and start a butterfly garden in conjunction with the educational garden. Teens will gain experience planning, designing and implementing the project. Butterfly projects will be conducted for the Morgan County Elementary schools in a classroom setting.

Owsley County

Owsley County Elementary – $2750 – Owsley County Elementary will invest in a greenhouse project to educate students in science content about soil/water relationships, seed germination, pollination partners, composting, as well as participate in the process of growing and cultivating plants for use in our schools.

Owsley County High School – $2750 – Owsley County High School will buy greenhouse supplies and equipment to enhance the school’s Farm to Table program. In addition, the grant will pay for bat boxes to be placed around the garden and campus, which will help lower the insect population and provide nitrogen-rich guano for the gardens.

Pike County

Feds Creek Elementary – $1300 – Feds Creek Elementary will use its grant for a butterfly garden and other structures like bird houses, bat houses and birdbaths.

University of Pikeville – $2750 – The University of Pikeville will install garden boxes on campus to provide students in the class an easily accessible, highly visible, central location for practical, hands-on gardening experience. The boxes will be integrated into other courses across the curriculum, both in and out of the classroom, as appropriate. Additionally, the boxes will provide a step toward a larger project in which the university is becoming “Bee Campus” certified.

Pulaski County

Southern Middle School – $2750 – Southern Middle School will use its grant for a collaborative project between the JROTC, Student Government (Energy Team), science students and staff, and community members. They will conduct a poster contest about recycling, and the winning posters will be featured in a wrap covering the school’s recycling trailer, which will be positioned for easy access by staff, parents and community members.

Somerset Christian School – $1831 – Somerset Christian School will buy purple martin and bat houses, which will be placed around the outdoor classroom. In addition, the school will buy educational materials, such as art easels, art supplies, and content books/magazines, to support studies in the outdoor classroom.

Pulaski County Public Library – $2750 – The Pulaski County Public Library will use its grant for a variety of environmental education activities, centered around the library’s Children’s Garden as an outdoor classroom. For the youngest children, appropriate activities will be used to bring about environmental awareness. School-age children will be taught and take part in activities that have real-life application.

Pulaski County 4-H – $1,660 – Pulaski County 4-H will invest in its 4-H Beekeepers Club, which will focus on the practice and art form that is beekeeping, as well as the steps citizens can take in preserving natural bee habitats and protecting native bee populations. The club will build hives and frames and introduce bees to the hives.

Somerset Community College – $2,750 – With its $2,750 grant, Somerset Community College will provide multiple environmental education opportunities for its students and community, demonstrating the importance of the protection of pollinators, water conservation and solid waste management.

Lake Cumberland Master Gardener Association – $2,730 – The Lake Cumberland Master Gardener Association will create a native plant woodland at Rocky Hollow Park to increase biodiversity and reduce the amount of herbicides used on hard to mow areas.

Russell County

Friends of Wolf Creek NFH – $2750 – The Friends of Wolf Creek National Fish Hatchery will buy supplies for its environmental education programs. For example, a vermiculture/composting bin and compost tumbler will be used as tools to educate on consumerism, solid waste management and individual best management practices.

Russell County Conservation District – $2500 – The Russell County Conservation District will buy recycling containers, redbud trees and peach trees for its annual Earth Day Celebration, which educates the community about the importance of recycling and planting trees.

Wayne County

Lake Cumberland Community Action Head Start – $2750 – Lake Cumberland Community Action Head Start will build an outdoor classroom at the Monticello/Wayne County Head Start Center. The project will provide an outdoor space for preschool age children and their families to learn about and become familiar with the environment.  The children will have the opportunity for many hands-on activities that will enhance their learning experience, such as planting and watering flowers and plants and observing and interacting with bugs, insects and birds.

Whitley County

Corbin School of Innovation – $1490.52 – Corbin School of Innovation will use its grant for its recycling program and a bird-watching project.

Whitley Central Intermediate School – $2750 – Whitley Central Intermediate School will build an outdoor classroom for activities such as science experiments, gardening and journal writing.

Wolfe County

Kentucky Waterways Alliance – $2750 – The Kentucky Waterways Alliance will use its grant for several activities to raise awareness of the importance of the Red River Watershed. For example, local high school science students will be trained to monitor water quality in local creeks and the Red River, and middle school and high school art students will design and create a water-related mural in the Campton City Park.

MKCAP – Wolfe – $2750 – Wolfe County’s MKCAP Head Start will purchase a variety of materials for its environmental education activities, which will engage children in hands-on learning opportunities.

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