Green in Action Honorary Mention
Eisenhower High School
Goddard, KS
Celebrate Earth event---Innovation through student developmental assets
The "Celebrate Earth" event serves as a capstone project for Ms. Scribner's ecology and biology students and is a wonderful example of how she has worked to engage her students beyond the classroom. The power of an event like this is in promoting student development assests. Ms. Scribner's ecology and biology students hosted the event for over 500 area 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders withing the school district. By having her students develop and lead 25 hands-on activities and five classroom labs for 3rd-5th grade students engenders a sense of responsibility in her students to share what they have learned in class and to work collectively to impact the world around them. "To me it is the ultimate semester final," said Ms. Scribner ecology teacher. If the students can share what they have learned with younger students then I know they have become environmentally literate citizens."
EHS OWLS area
Ms. Scribner, along with student input, developed a three-phase plan to construct a new outdoor wildlife learning site (O.W.L.S.) at Eisenhower High School. Start up funds were received from Kansas Wildlife and Parks O.W.L.S .grant. These funds enabled Ms. Scribner to engage her students from the first day of class at the new high school (Aug 2011) to build the "legacy for learning" project--ten elevated interpretive garden beds of culturally significant plants to Kansas (Phase One-O.W.L.S.). Phase Two involved a winter hand-casting of native grasses and forbs seeds to develop a native grasses raparian area to filter the street run off that eventually goes to a catch basin. Phase Three will have the catch basin being developed into an aquatics study site once it is filled. Students now feel a part of their new high school by leaving their mark on the barren terrain that surrounded the school due to the recent construction work. The students have maintained the native plant interpretive gardens throught the fall, winter and now in spring the flowers have begun to bloom just in time for the Celebrate Earth event. The students are currently working on a booklet describing each plant, its scientific name, and information on why it is culturally significant to Kansas to share with our neighborhing schools on the Eisenhower campus.