The city’s Keep Winter Park Beautiful & Sustainable (KWPB&S) Advisory Board Green Schools Grant Program awards mini grants to public and private schools serving Winter Park residents to help support their efforts to achieve sustainability goals and beautify their campus while engaging and educating students in the practices of sustainability.
Project Suggestions
Access the printable Green Schools Grant Project Suggestions document
Buildings, Energy & Water
- Participate in an energy conservation week [turn out lights, use flashlights]
- Create water-less planters: waste reduction & water conservation
- Used rain barrel design for water conservation calendar & rainwater reuse
- Create reminder poster to report wasting water
- Do a hands-on outdoor activity & renewable energy
- Establish energy benchmarks for school & compare data with other schools as part of math project
- Educate on green buildings in classes [LEED, etc.]
- Learn about different types of renewable energy with interactive activities
- Explore opportunities within their school for energy conservation [LED lights, motion activated lights, timed water faucets, etc.]
Community Engagement & Green Economy
- Volunteer at food banks [Second Harvest Food Bank, Loaves & Fishes Community Services]
- Collect food & funds for those in need [spring break food drive]
- Organize a school beautification day [landscaping & painting projects]
- Set up a school-wide sustainability Earth Week [meatless Monday, transportation Tuesday, water Wednesday, trashy Thursday, civic Friday, shop green Saturday, nature Sunday]
- Bring in guest speakers for sustainability education workshops
- Organize & raise awareness about local volunteer opportunities for cleanups of natural spaces
- Have students calculate their environmental/carbon footprint as a class project [utilize interactive websites]
- Partner with other local schools to engage in a green school challenge [who can be more sustainable with recycling, waste diversion, energy conservation, etc.]
Local Food & Agriculture
- Build green houses or school gardens to grow food
- Implement a food rescue program [guest speaker talks about striving to end food waste & hunger]
- Offer cooking classes with food that is grown on campus
- Learn community partners about gardening styles & techniques [hydroponics]
- Influence better nutrition [sample & vote on future cafeteria menu options]
Mobility & Urban Form
- Develop a flyer to send home to parents to help reduce emissions on campus
- Schedule a walk to school week
- Increase car-pooling efforts
- Map out more efficient bus routes
- Increase bike storage on campus & encourage the use of such
Natural Systems & Resources
- Install rain barrels & educate about stormwater
- Create awareness of different habitats [adopt a dolphin]
- Build, hang & maintain bird feeders
- Take a field trip to different ecosystems [Everglades]
- Build & install native bee houses
- Plant trees & increase educational efforts on deforestation
Waste Diversion & Recycling
- Create water-less planters [waste reduction & water conservation]
- Design recycling posters
- Deliver recycle bins
- Come up with creative waste reduction [reuse old cardboard in art projects]
- Start a recycling club, green central station
- Learn about litter & act to donate recess to campus clean up
- Develop recycling rewards competition/program [which class recycles the most, individual students, etc.]
- Teach beautification & reusing by holding a door decoration competition using pieces of trash [clean, no food, etc.]
- Develop composting efforts in the cafeteria & implement educational tools on such efforts
2024 KWPB&S Green School Grant Recipients
| School | Project |
|---|---|
| Methodist School for Early Education | Expand and protect their existing pollinator garden. |
| Glenridge Middle School | Implement a pollinator and vegetable garden, as well as a small greenhouse on campus. |
| Lakemont Elementary | Implement a green space for students and teachers to collaborate on life cycle lessons and STEM activities |
| All Saints School | Build interactive, tactile sensory walls with natural and recycled materials for their outdoor classroom |
| Walden Community School | Hatch and raise chickens on campus to teach their students about sustainable agriculture. |
| Winter Park High School | Implement terracycle boxes to their cafeteria in order to recycle items such as gum, candy wrappers, and chip bags which cannot go in the normal recycling stream. |