Four Park Forest Elementary students were at the White House on Tuesday to receive a national award for the school’s environmental efforts.
Adam Cooper, Adam Lieb, Robert Rothrock and Elijah Snyder, accompanied by Principal Donnan Stoicovy, represented Park Forest’s Green Team in receiving the President’s Environmental Youth Award for students’ work to reach zero waste status at the school.
Park Forest’s project was one of 17 from 10 Environmental Protection Agency regions nationwide selected for the honor, and the only one from EPA Region 3. The award, established in 1971, is co-sponsored by the EPA and the President of the United States and recognizes ‘outstanding environmental projects by K-12 youth.’
‘The Department of Education is deeply committed to the work that we lift up and celebrate today. We are deeply committed to being a partner with you in creating healthier, more equitable school communities and neighborhoods,’ U.S. Secretary of Education John King said at Tuesday’s ceremony. ‘I’m excited in particular to honor our President’s Environmental Youth Award winners, who are shining examples of the ways in which students can be responsible, engaged global citizens and innovative problem solvers.’
Park Forest has diverted 85 percent of the school’s waste from landfills and cut its waste bills almost in half through an extensive recycling program and other sustainability efforts. Students worked with Penn State to conduct a waste audit in 2015 and used the results to create a waste-reduction plan. An educational campaign within the school called ‘Are You Sure?’ teaches students, faculty and staff about properly disposing waste that could be recycled or composted.
According to State College Area School District, Park Forest Elementary recycled 470 pounds of metal cans, 1,695 pounds of plastic bottles and 9,660 of mixed paper in 2015. The recycling efforts have resulted in the need for a refuse truck to come to the school only two times a week, instead of five, to take away trash.
Park Forest Elementary has received several honors this year for its environmental and sustainability work. The school was named a Centre County Green Business Partner in April.
Also in April, the Green Team’s ‘On the Road to Zero Waste’ video was shown to governors, senators, Congressional representatives and state Secretaries of Education at a meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Program. In July the video took first place at the Professional Recyclers of Pennsylvania Annual Recycling Film Festival in Harrisburg.
Earlier this year, Park Forest Elementary was named a Green Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education, the only individual school in Pennsylvania and one of 73 educational institutions nationally to receive the honor.
