Mountain Park Class Wins Environmental Award

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division recently selected Mountain Park Elementary School's fifth-grade Talented and Gifted class as its 2010 "Georgia Adopt-A-Stream 'AAS in Action' Award" winners.

Every year the award is presented to one group in Georgia whose methods to educate their community on environmental issues have gone above and beyond. Typically, these groups use non-traditional formats like You Tube, art, music or another multimedia application to raise awareness about water quality.

Mountain Park students, who were already monitoring the health of the stream at Leita Thomson Memorial Park, secured the award by creating a company they called, "Adopt-A-Wreath," through which they made and sold seasonal wreaths to friends and family over the holidays.

By using profits from the company, they set out to provide an "informational kiosk on the trail to the creek, plant indigenous vegetation to stabilize the creek bank and build a sitting area for visitors to the area," said teacher Kati Searcy.

Along with plenty of parent volunteers, Laura Aikens from Roswell's Environmental Division and David Smith, a biologist from Ecological Solutions are assisting students in the endeavor.

Searcy will represent her class at Adopt-A-Stream’s annual conference on Mar. 26, in Buford, where she will be presented with the official award.