On December 17th, 2018 the Youth Eco Solutions (YES!) Program announced the 2018-19 winners of the McKnight Foundation Project Seed Funding. Funding was awarded to teams implementing projects that involve creating solutions to today's environmental challenges through hands on projects that impact their school and/or communities. Through a competitive process, 5 teams received funding to complete
Northern Lights Community School Hydration Station
The Northern Lights Community School received some fantastic news this year for their school. A few weeks ago, they were awarded $500 from the McKnight Foundation and $500 from Waste Management to help them put in a hydration station in their school this year. A hydration station is a water fountain that comes equipped with a water bottle filling spout. Most models of hydration stations also have
Waste-less Lunch Competition
At this year’s YES! Fall Summit on October 3rd at Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center students were responsible for bringing their own lunch. We thought this would be a great opportunity for the students to learn about waste. What better way to get the students excited than by creating a friendly competition? A waste-less lunch competition. The winning team would receive $50 toward a pizza
YES! Students Attend CERTs Workshop
On November 1, the coach and 2 students from the Sleepy Eye team and a representative from Mankato West went to the workshop “Capturing Savings from Public Building Energy Efficiency: Bench-marking through Financing – Getting your Project Done”. The workshop was held by Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs) at Minnesota State University, Mankato. The workshop was focused on providing resources and
YES! Alumni Spotlight: Courtney Messner
Courtney is a first year coach for the Springfield YES! team and was a YES! team member when she was in high school! While in high school, Courtney notes that the YES! team gave her a "passion for improving the sustainability of my own lifestyle and my community. It made me more aware of my impact and how I could help". In addition, participating in YES! furthered her love of biology and
Meet Sam, Northeastern YES! Coordinator
We are excited to welcome Sam back to the YES! program. Here is what Sam wants to share with all of you: I was born and raised in Waconia, MN and I received my Bachelor’s in Biology from Crown College. After I graduated, I took a position with the Minnesota GreenCorps and was stationed at the Laurentian Environmental Center. I worked to help implement the first year of YES! in the Northeast