On October 26th, 2018 the Youth Eco Solutions (YES!) Program announced the 2018-19 winners of the McKnight Foundation Project Seed Funding. Funding was awarded to teams whose projects involve creating solutions to today’s environmental challenges through hands on projects that impact their school and/or community. Through a competitive process, 6 teams received funding to complete their projects.
The project funding is a result of a larger grant received by the YES! Program from The McKnight Foundation in the Fall of 2016 to bring climate literacy to YES! students across Minnesota. All teams that received funding have a clear vision on how their project relates to climate change.
A complete list of the winning teams and a description of their projects is provided below:
- The New Prague YES! Team will be focusing on energy conservation and renewable energy by doing an energy audit of their school, designing solar panel cell phone chargers, and building wind turbine kits.
- The ROCORI YES! Team plans to install another water bottle refilling station in their school which reduces the demand for disposable plastic bottles and decreases their school’s carbon footprint while raising awareness about waste.
- The New London-Spicer Middle School YES! Team will be updating their high school gym entry way lights to LED energy efficient lighting to reduce the energy usage and reduce their carbon footprint.
- The Minnetonka High School YES! Team plans to design and construct an early season greenhouse with a solar-powered water heating/cooling system that focuses on low energy output.
- The Royalton YES! Team will be taking existing bicycles and transforming them into electric powered vehicles that use solar energy and produce zero emissions.
- The Northern Lights Community School Yes! Team plans to install a water bottle refilling station in their school to minimize their dependency on single-use plastic water bottles which reduces waste and lowers their carbon footprint.
More to come: Teams will be blogging and sharing photos on their projects!
