King County seeks nominations for Earth Heroes at Schools awards

Awards recognize outstanding efforts to educate youth, protect environment

King County wants to honor the students, teachers, staff, school volunteers, programs or entire schools that have contributed to both environmental protection and student environmental education.

"Environmental education and environmental action go hand-in-hand, and the contribution that schools make to the protection of our local environment is significant and essential,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine.

Nominations for the 2010 Earth Heroes at School are due March 1. Winners will be honored at King County's ninth-annual Earth Heroes at Schools recognition event in April.

Recycling, restoring habitat, composting lunchroom waste, and growing pesticide-free gardens are among the many types of projects conducted by students, teachers and others in schools across the county.

“We want to recognize these leaders and their accomplishments," Constantine said.

Earth Heroes at School honorees last year included:

• The student-run espresso stand at Global Connections High School in SeaTac includes sustainability as one of its business principles, and sells organic, fair-traded, shade grown coffee and tea, serves it in recyclable or reusable cups, and cleans up with non-chemical cleaners.
• Staff and students on the Sustainability Team at Skyview Junior High School in Bothell developed a recycling and waste monitoring project, family sustainability surveys, a hazardous waste reduction program and a student-led effort to convince McLendon’s Hardware to accept fluorescent light bulbs for recycling.
• Meg Handy, the librarian at Fall City Elementary School, helped improve the lunchroom recycling program, obtained grant funds for solar panels for the school, started worm bins for composting food scraps, and led the effort to restore a school garden.
• John Spiess, a teacher at Twin Falls Middle School in North Bend and adviser for the environmental club, organized his students to practice waste reduction and recycling strategies, water and energy conservation, and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

In acknowledging the accomplishments of environmental leaders in the school community, the Earth Heroes at School Program hopes to bring attention to their innovation, creativity and dedication and inspire others to adopt similar actions to protect the environment.

Earth Heroes can be nominated by colleagues, classmates or the general public.  Self-nominations are also encouraged.  Nomination forms and the list of 2009 winners can be found at http://your.kingcounty.gov/solidwaste/education/earth-heroes.asp, or by calling Donna Miscolta at 206-296-4477.

Related information

Earth Heroes at School

King County Solid Waste