Milton awards two environmental grants.

Pictured at Birmingham Falls Elementary School are, from left, Chris Lagerbloom, city manager of the City of Milton, Tresa Cheatham, assistant principal of Birmingham Falls, Jack Lindon, chairman of Milton Grows Green, Windy Bottoms, principal of Birmingham Falls, and Beth Brock, a fifth grade teacher at Birmingham Falls.

Courtesy City of Milton

As part of the Milton's Evergreen School program, the city recently awarded Birmingham Falls Elementary School and Cambridge High School each $500 grants to further their work in environmental education.

Birmingham Falls is using their grant funds to purchase supplies for a new Adopt a Stream initiative for fifth grade. Teachers and parent volunteers will be trained in biological and chemical water testing by a water department representative from Fulton County.

Educators will be able to assist the students in monitoring the water quality of a stream on the school's campus on an ongoing basis. This project ties in with the Fulton County STEM curriculum (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and gives students an experiential learning environment to learn scientific methodology for testing water quality and recording data on a State of GA EPA website.

Additionally, some of the funds will be used for the installation of rain barrels in the school's courtyard area.

Cambridge High School was the other Milton school that received the environmental education grant.

To encourage the school to try and reduce the tremendous amount of paper, plastic and cardboard used, a grant was given to Cambridge to expand their classroom recycling program and to fund an organic garden.

For more information on Evergreen Schools, a no-cost program available to all public and private K-12 schools, please contact Cindy Eade, sustainability coordinator for the City of Milton at cindy.eade@cityofmiltonga.us.