News Flash

Congratulations to the 2015 Green School Award winners: Kecoughtan High School, Phenix School, Phoebus High School, Spratley Gifted Center. These school exemplify the best environmental education practices among Hampton's schools.

Schools that received an honorable mention were Cooper Elementary School and Moton Early Childhood Center.

The Green School Awards recognize no more than five schools that develop environmental programs and activities in six areas: litter prevention, environmental education within the classrooms and in extracurricular activities, school beautification, environmental leadership through related clubs, and energy and water conservation.

Kecoughtan High School has an ecology club, conducts school ground cleanup and beautification days regularly, recycles, collects clothing for reuse, collects plastic bags for recycling, has a rain barrel and plans to install more, and maintains a butterfly garden at the entrance to the school. In addition, the school is a designated wildlife habitat and teachers attend environmental education conferences.

Phenix School conducts litter prevention campaigns and cleanups, recycles (including plastic bags), conducts beautification projects, encourages energy and water conservation education, conducts environmental education campaigns, and use the outdoors as a classroom. In addition, teachers from the school participated in an after-school Tour de Trash to learn more about the solid waste stream and what happens to it.

Phoebus High School has the Phoebus Recycling Team, and its members do so much more than recycling. As a whole, the school conducts regular cleanups. The Recycling Team not only collects recyclables from all participating classrooms, but they also collect plastic bags and shred and recycle paper. The school is working on rejuvenating a vegetable garden outside its cafeteria.

Spratley Gifted Center works consistently on litter prevention and cleanup. The Ecology Club conducts regular educational campaigns about both litter prevention and recycling. In addition to regular recyclables, the students also collect plastic bags. Water quality and conservation are big topics - the school has six rain barrels, regularly cleans the creek beside the school, and even raise trout for release in mountain streams. Teachers regularly use the outdoor spaces as a classroom. Students and staff maintain garden areas that include native plants, and courtyard spaces are used for vegetable gardening and composting.

For more information about the Hampton Clean City Commission's School Pride in Action Program, the Green School Awards, and other environmental education efforts, contact HCCC at 727-1130 or hccc@hampton.gov.