DEP To Accept Environmental Education Grant Applications

“Education is our best tool to enable Pennsylvanians to appreciate the environment and better understand what it takes to preserve it,” McGinty says. “Projects can range from creative, hands-on lessons for students to training programs for teachers to ecological education for residents. All of these projects are designed to give people a firsthand look at the role we play in protecting and preserving the environment.”

Grant amounts vary from $1,500 for mini-grants to $10,000 and $20,000 on seven tracks designed to address specific topics identified as gaps in the environmental education community. The timely and critically important topics include: sustainable energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass and geothermal, and technologies such as alternative transportation fuels; air quality issues with focus on ground-level ozone and particulates, transportation and electric-generation; and watersheds and wetlands, focusing on acid mine drainage, nonpoint source pollution and water conservation in Pennsylvania.

The Academic Standards for Environment and Ecology and Science and Technology are the focus for kindergarten through 12th-grade education grants. The state-mandated standards provide a roadmap for what students must know about the environment by the end of fourth, seventh, 10th and 12th grades. Specific areas of instruction include watersheds and wetlands; environmental health; agriculture and society; threatened, endangered and extinct species; and humans and the environment. Schools may apply for money to integrate the Academic Standards for Environment and Ecology into formal curriculum, or to provide lessons and field experiences that include standards based instruction.

Conservation and education organizations and colleges and universities may apply to do professional development workshops in the field of environmental education.

County conservation districts may apply to assist with environmental education efforts that relate to their mission. The districts also may apply on the mini-grant track to provide educational resources that can be made available to educators by conservation districts.

Pre-application letters must be postmarked by Dec. 17 to be considered.

To request an application manual, write to the DEP Environmental Education Grants Program, P.O. Box 2063, Harrisburg, PA 17105-2063; or call 717-772-1828.

For more information or to download an application, visit DEP’s Web site www.dep.state.pa.us, Keyword: “EE Grants.”