Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City (ACGC)
- Installed energy efficient hand dryers in the middle school bathrooms
- Recycled holiday lights
- Installed two new hand dryers into school bathrooms
- Donated 72.5 pounds of shoes to the Atwater Lions Club for recycling and re-purposing
- Provided education to elementary school students at the Earth Day event
- Held a food drive and collected 103 pounds of food
- Conducted a survey on food waste
- Planned a paint collection for lead and oil based paints
Carlton
- Hosted a Climate Convening with Climate Generation on May 4th.
- Continued their composting project, collecting 5-10 pounds of food waste each day from their cafeteria
- Organized a community clean-up with their middle school students. The YES! Students participate as “mentor” supervisors for this event, going out with the middle school students to help and encourage as they rake yards, pick up trash, and clean up their community
Discovery Woods Montessori (Brainerd)
- Collecting data on food waste in the lunchroom and implemented waste reduction projects with their 4th-6th graders.
- Researched how to make their school library lighting more energy efficient and cost effective. They applied for grants to help pay for this project and educated their community about the energy savings of these types of lights
Forest Lake
- Hosted a free movie event, screening “Before the Flood” to educate others on climate change
- Planted trees in their community
- Collected 400 pounds of holiday lights for recycling
- Maintained hallway recycling bins in their school
- Planted 200 plants in re-purposed milk cartons for Earth Day
Glencoe-Silver Lake
- Designed and built two portable 120 volt solar chargers for students and staff to use in an out of school-they even used these chargers to power their electric vehicles!
- Raised funds for their projects by recycling over 6,000 pounds of scrap steel and aluminum collected from a school construction project
- Entered 4 vehicles into the annual MTEEA Supermileage Challenge
- Designed and built a boat for the MRES Solar Boat Regatta
- Brought their message to the 2017 MN State Fair where they drove in the parade and met with fair-goers to discuss electric vehicles and solar powered boats
- Displayed their vehicles and boat at the McLeod County Manufacturers Expo and the McLeod County Fair
Hutchinson
- Built another tiny home!
Lac qui Parle Valley
- Continued to plant and harvest in their deep winter green house
Mankato West
- Hosted screenings of An Inconvenient Truth, An Inconvenient Sequel, and A Sea Change for their peers. Each showing involved 25-30 of their peers and allowed the YES! students to discuss climate change with their fellow students
- Worked to switch back to using reusable silverware in the cafeteria rather than plastic utensils
- Made a sculpture to showcase what a week of plasticware looks like (it is 2378 utensils!) to help students visually understand the magnitude of the issue
Melrose
- Sold LED light bulbs provided by their local utility for a Watts and Drops Fundraiser. The students used this opportunity to educate their community about energy savings and used the money generated to increase the number of school garbage stations and purchased smart power strips for teachers
- Worked on Hemker zoo animal enrichment research and learned about animal exchange programs and endangered species programs
- Designed signs for their school garbage and recycling stations
- Planned Earth Day activities for their local 2nd grade classes
Moorhead – Youth Educational Services–NEW Team in 2017-2018
- Researched ways they can make an impact at the College Campus where they have class
- Completed clean energy education
New London-Spicer Middle School
- Installed energy efficient hand dryers in their school bathrooms
- Continued to plant and harvest in their deep winter green house and supply their school cafeteria with fresh vegetables
- Picked their school apples and grapes, canned sauce and jam, and baked cookies with local ingredients, which they sold at the bake sale and the Kandi Mall in Willmar to promote local foods
- Presented to each Middle School classroom during Energy Week
- Taught 300 elementary students about water quality, worm composting and gardening, wind energy, insect adaptation, and integrated pest management
New London-Spicer High School – NEW Team in 2017-2018
- Continue aquatic invasive species survey on local lakes
- Planned and hosted a youth climate convening for their community with Climate Generation on April 21st
- Educated peers on aquatic invasive species
- Thanks to a grant from CERTs, the team was able to replace the old light fixtures in the high school parking lot with LED lights
New Prague ALC
- Created 2 pollinator gardens at the school and planted 2 apple trees
- Composted over 300 gallons of waste
- Installed rain barrels and collected and used 200 gallons of water
- Created 5 natural playscapes for the Ney Nature Center
- Received the “Outstanding Volunteer of the Year” award from Ney Nature Center
- Planned the first “Community Green Day” in their town
- Planted over 500 vegetable plants for their school and community gardens
New Ulm
- Improved the signage on hallway recycling bins including “wish cycling” posters to stop non-recyclables from being put in the recycling containers
- Collected classroom recycling each Friday and sorted out non-recyclables
- Made sure waste and recyclables got in the correct receptacles in the cafeteria
- Set up worm bins and allowed classes to check them out for their classroom
- Invasive species removal of buckthorn and garlic mustard
- Created 3-D sculptures of all of the juice and milk cartons that get thrown away in a typical day in their school cafeteria to encourage proper recycling of these products
Northern Lights Community School (Warba)
- Hosted a Climate Convening on May 11th in Grand Rapids including 10 resource tables, 3 solutions workshops, and 3 climate change storytellers
- Raised trout eggs to fingerlings and released them into an area stream in May. Students tested ammonia, pH, nitrate and nitrite levels, and temperature daily as well as cleaning the tanks and feeding the fish
- Built a 450-gallon plywood tank to be used for aquaponics
- Created a more natural habitat for the school turtles
- Raised wax worms for their classroom pet toads, frogs, and salamanders
- Adopted Ice Lake where they cleaned up garbage and debris around the lake
- Continue to collect, weigh, and keep data on the amount of lunch waste produced by the student body. They have decreased the amount of waste to zero as their compostable waste is sent to a local farmer who uses it for feed
- Cultivated, planted, and got their school garden/greenhouse up and running
- Participated and presented at community events such as Earth Day and Tall Timber Days
Pillager – NEW Team in 2017-2018
- Organized a workshop on clean energy and energy efficiency
ROCORI (Cold Spring/Richmond)
- Installing a 4-panel solar project for their school courtyard
- Continued to assess the recycling container needs in their district and do weekly recycling in their middle and high school buildings
- Once again collected shoes throughout their district for the World Wear Project and partnered with the ROCORI Community Closet to provide clothing for those in need
- Helped run a trial composting project in their school lunchroom that will be expanded if successful
Sartell-St. Stephen Middle School
- Designed 6 lessons on waste reduction that we used to educate 1300 students in grades 5-8
- Linking peer educational lessons for other schools via a website designed by students
- Researched and lobbied for bulk milk in the lunch room to replace paper cartons, which will be trialed in the fall
- Used a program called Papercut to track paper usage and challenged staff to use less paper during the month of April
- Got permanent recycling bins placed in all classrooms and in the lunchroom
- Made a video to train their peers on what can and cannot be recycled in their lunchroom
Sleepy Eye (Public and St. Mary’s)
- Set up the park for the LED holiday lights display
- Participated in river monitoring through the MN Valley River Watch Program, collecting data from a county ditch and the Cottonwood River, both tributaries of the Minnesota River. The results became part of the MN Pollution Control Agency’s water quality database
- Updated the outdoor security lighting to energy efficient fixtures and LED lighting
- Created a pollinator garden at a local apartment complex
- Promoted proper recycling and energy efficiency
- Hosted interactive booth at local summer events
- Entered B3 benchmarking data
- Created bee boxes for native solitary bees
Springfield
- Continued to collect pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald House, resulting in 250 pounds over 2 years of collection
- Collected holiday lights for recycling, collecting and donating over 700 pounds of lights!
Staples-Motley – NEW Team in 2017-2018
- Organized a workshop on clean energy and energy efficiency
Virginia
- Continued their shoreline restoration on Silver Lake including presenting at a City Council meeting about their progress on the project
- Presented posters at their local EarthFest and won a People’s Choice Award for the presentations
Westbrook-Walnut Grove
- Collected and recycled holiday lights
- Building a Surrey Bike to transport students between school campuses
- Continuing recycling of plastic bags, collecting over 33,000 bags!
- Recycled 2,700 cans, plastic, and glass bottles
- Collected 65,000 pop tabs for recycling through the Ronald McDonald House
- Up-cycling old lights and bottles into planters
Wrenshall
- Finished the recycling center in Mahtowa, serving 400 community members.
- Designed and built a solar boat for the Solar Boat Regatta
- Built a high mileage vehicle for the MTEEA Supermileage Challenge
Yellow Medicine East
- Continued last year’s project of installing a hydration station outside their gym
- Designed an educational sign for their community garden for all to read
- Researched starting a solar garden in their community for the school and other community members.
4-H Pilot Program-Washington County
- A pilot program between 4-H and YES!
