Rebooting Catawba River District News

Can you help us get out the word?

June 25, 2013 - Your Catawba River District Team and its many partners have been hard at work these past few months.  We are re-launching our communications strategy to expand our audience and begin sharing stories of all our amazing activities.
Right now we need your help in reaching out to your connections and encouraging your friends, family and associates to STEM-up and connect with us by subscribing to our newsletter, becoming a friend on our Facebook page and joining us on our journey toward developing a model for sustainable community.

Now to catch you up:

Our main website, CatawbaRiverDistrict.org, is your source for information on our programs and projects.  It's also where you can volunteer to help with our 50 schoolyard garden boxes and connect to Friendship Gardens (a story you won't want to miss in our next newsletter).
Our website is where we will soon build our local business directory and where you will find our mission and vision – which connects education, local business and economic development.  This is where you sign up for the newsletter.

Inspiring photos and videos at SchoolEcoChallenge.org

You may already know about another website we created for our Eco-Footprint Challenge. At SchoolEcoChallenge.org, you will find a host of videos and photos from our area schools telling their stories of the recently completed 2013 Eco-Footprint Challenge.

Sage loves the Catawba River District!

The videos and photos are guaranteed to brighten your day and increase your love for the creativity of children (another story you won't want to miss).
When our team of bloggers last shared their stories with you, I wrote on behalf of my black lab, Sage, who has lived all her 9 years in the Catawba River District.  Don't worry; Sage still has some stories to share.
So let's get started. Take just a minute right now, visit us at Facebook.com/CatawbaRiverDistrict and become our friend.

Edna Chirico, Executive Director

Eco-Footprint Challenge a success!

6 schools created ways to protect Earth

June 25, 2013 – What do you get when you challenge young learners and their teachers to protect the environment?
In the Catawba River District, our first annual Eco-Footprint Challenge drew fascinating solutions involving worms, fermented food and even basketball hoops over recycling bins.
Our winning school teams earned trophies and plaques for their hard work.
More important, the Eco-Footprint Challenge has helped hundreds of our elementary and middle-school students discover the fun and value of applying of science, technology, engineering and math to real-life challenges.

The challenge: reduce your school's environmental impact

The challenge began early this year when we and our corporate partner, Piedmont Natural Gas, invited public schools serving the River District in Mecklenburg and Gaston Counties to devise ways to reduce their school’s impact on the environment. To spice up the challenge, we added the incentive of friendly competition and prizes for the best elementary and middle-school projects.

Rankin Elementary video introduces "Bokashi!"

Hundreds of students and scores of teachers and volunteers designed projects, created videos of what they hoped to accomplish, and then worked for six weeks in April and May to save energy, recycle lunchroom plastic, and turn lunchtime food waste into compost for school vegetable gardens. One school raised worms to help their compost. Another tried bokashi fermentation!
So much work! So much enthusiasm! So much learning through hands-on activities that builds science, technology, engineering and math skills.
Our team of judges included experts in science, recycling, water quality and gardening. One judge visited each school to see the project first-hand. We videotaped those presentations for all of the judges to see as well. Now the judges have spoken.

We have our winners!

First Place:

• Earning first place among elementary schools is River Oaks Academy for its “Great Shutdown of 2013!” (CLICK to see team data, photos and video)
• A team of sixth graders at Whitewater Middle School took first place among older students for their project on “Ozone-Plant Alerts.” (CLICK to see team data, photos and video)

Second Place: 

• Our second-place winners include Second graders at Catawba Heights Elementary School for their project, “The Composters!” (CLICK to see team data, photos and video)
• And middle-school students at Mountain Island Charter School for their schoolwide recycling campaign to “Cut the Plastic Trash.” (CLICK to see team data, photos and video)

Receiving Honorable Mentions are:

• Rankin Elementary School third-graders for “Composting with Bokashi!” (CLICK to see team data, photos and video)
• NS Whitewater Academy students for “Composting with Vermiculture.” (CLICK to see team data, photos and video)

Thanks to our partners

We thank all the students, staff and volunteers at these schools for their hard work and creativity.

We also acknowledge the financial and volunteer support this project received from Piedmont Natural Gas and two other River District corporate sponsors, Novant Health Huntersville Medical Center and Huber Technology.

You can learn much more about our Eco-Footprint Challenge at its website, schoolecochallenge.org. Along with general information about the overall challenge, you will find pages devoted to each school’s project including a brief description, weekly data reports, videos, photo albums and blogs.

If you don’t think kids enjoy STEM learning, just check out all of the smiling faces!

Friendship Gardens wants our produce!

Our gardens need TLC this summer

June 25, 2013 – The Catawba River District schoolyard garden program has found a new partner to help us expand the usefulness of our schoolyard gardens' produce. The partner is Friendship Gardens, led by Henry Owens. 
Over 60 community and schoolyard gardens belong to Friendship Gardens, and most donate some of their produce to help another important program, Friendship Trays. Originally called Meals on Wheels, Friendship Trays prepares and delivers more than 750 meals a day to shut-ins and the elderly.

Our gardens need summertime help. How about you?

Last week I toured our gardens at Mountain Island Elementary, Whitewater Middle and Whitewater Academy with Sarah, a Friendship Gardens Volunteer from Davidson College.  We harvested tomatoes, radishes, beans, lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini. The next day, I took what we harvested down to the Culinary School of Charlotte.

Culinary School uses our produce 

The magic chefs at Culinary School of Charlotte are another important part of the Friendship Trays operation. They assess all the fruits and vegetables coming in from Friendship Gardens and use these fresh foods in the hundreds of meals they prepare each day for individuals and families in our area who need quality meals.
Volunteers pick up the prepared meals and deliver them to the designated families in our area.  This is the Friendship Trays component.
To find out more about Henry and Friendship Gardens visit www.friendship-gardens.org

Gardens help our students grow STEM skills

Catawba River District launched schoolyard gardens at the three schools as a way to help our students strengthen their science, technology, engineering and math skills while learning more about healthy diets and gardening.
Now in addition to the pride of growing fruits and vegetables, our students and teachers involved in schoolyard gardens can be a part of a larger community initiative, Friendship Gardens, helping their neighbors receive locally grown and locally prepared meals.

We need summertime garden volunteers!

The Catawba River District is still looking for volunteers to help weed, harvest our gardens this summer and to support the teachers and students throughout the school year as we strive to plant in the fall, spring and summer this coming year.
To volunteer email me at echirico@catawbariverdistrict.org.
Visit CatawbaRiverDistrict.org to learn much more about our schoolyard gardens.

Edna Chirico
Executive Director

Stay up with the Catawba River District

Whitewater Academy students learn about vermiculture

June 18, 2013 – The Catawba River District wants to share its news with you. We have much to talk about, including our just concluded Eco-Footprint Challenge involving six public schools and hundreds of students. We also need your help as we work on projects like building a greenway connection to the Whitewater Center.
This news post is just the beginning of our new communications venture. We will have much more to share, but in the meantime, please click on the email link so that you can get a short message as we update our news.
Thanks.
Rich Haag, Catawba River District