St. Camillus wins PRIDE award for water conservation project

For encouraging water conservation, St. Camillus Academy earned southern and eastern Kentucky’s PRIDE Environmental Education Project of the Month Award. 

“Clean water is a basic necessity for all life, so water conservation is an important lesson for us all,” said PRIDE’s Karen Engle. “I commend St. Camillus for sharing that lesson with students and their families in creative, memorable ways. For example, providing reusable water bottles to all students was a great use of a PRIDE grant to encourage personal responsibility for the environment.”

“We chose the water conservation project because there is a need to educate students and families about ways to help conserve,” explained Lynn Stivers, the teacher who sponsors the PRIDE Club at St. Camillus Academy, which is a private school in Corbin. “Also, many classroom science books have chapters about water conservation and recycling. We were all able to do follow up activities with our students.”

The school-wide project included activities for all students, from Montessori through eighth grade. For example, the Montessori students read books about water conservation, and older students did water experiments in science class. 

Two central activities were led by the fifth-grade members of the school’s PRIDE Club. They performed a skit, “Fred the Fish,” for all other students. The skit showed that individuals can prevent many sources of water pollution by making responsible decisions, such as limiting lawn chemicals and fixing cars’ oil leaks.

After the skit, fifth-graders gave reusable, stainless-steel water bottles to every student and faculty member. The fifth-graders had stuffed the 160 bottles with letters to parents about the need to conserve water and with conservation tips and activities for families.

“Many students are using their water bottles here at school,” Stivers said. “Many classrooms have strongly discouraged the use of plastic water bottles. Some students have been practicing and recording water usage activities at home with their families. Many parents have also asked how to get a bottle for themselves.”

St. Camillus Academy received a $4,000 PRIDE Environmental Education Grant for the 2009/2010 school year. In addition to buying the reusable water bottles, the school is using its PRIDE grant for greenhouse equipment and supplies, recycling containers, outdoor classroom materials, and a PRIDE Club.

The PRIDE Environmental Education Project of the Month Award recognizes creative, effective ways of showing students why and how to care for the environment. 

PRIDE is a nonprofit organization that promotes environmental cleanup and education efforts in 38 counties of southern and eastern Kentucky. The PRIDE web site is www.kypride.org