Green in Action Winner
Boynton Beach Community High School
Tiger ACT - Agriculture & Conservation Team
Boynton Beach, FL
Grade level 11-12
Theme: Go Green in 2015: 1st Annual Earth Day Community Festival
Our Tiger ACT students hosted the first annual Earth Day Community Festival at our school campus on April 25 with a “Go Green in 2015” theme. It was a FREE event for the whole community and included a variety of exhibits & activities.
This was part of our Green in 2015 Initiative which was started by the gardening program Tiger ACT students. We applied for Green School Recognition for the first time in our school's history and in our first year achieved Green School of Excellence, the highest level of green school achievement! Our school garden, which was the star of our green campus tour, focused on sustainable agriculture, healthy eating, and native gardening techniques. Students in the gardening class have worked all year creating an edible garden of nutritionally dense foods which have been prepared by our culinary program.
We continued our Green in 2015 initiative with our Earth Day Festival which extended our Green reach to the larger community. The Festival included campus Green tours where guests visited our outdoor classroom, garden, culinary kitchen, canal area, and solar panels. Kids were invited to Paint-a-Pot, Plant a Seed: they painted flower pots with a save-the-planet theme and planted native flower seeds in them. At our “Tasty Garden Bites” exhibit, guests sampled culinary creations featuring fresh garden produce, including eggplant salad, kale chips, & mint tea. They were then invited to take the herb identification challenge where they could win a free bag of garden herbs.
We had an in-depth recycling exhibit with a sorting game. Kids flocked to the endangered species face painting area where they could choose a tiger (our mascot), panda, or macaw and then receive an “I am a…” information card about the animal they chose.
We educated the public about water conservation and offered reusable water bottles for sale with a free ice water hydration station. Our teen leaders excitedly shared classic and new earth friendly stories during Earth Day Story Time, which featured the Lorax and a variety of books with positive Earth Day Themes. This was our effort to inspire a love of nature and taking care of the earth in our youngest generation. We offered a “Hug the Earth photo spot”, where guests could snap pictures hugging our earth beach ball and use snap chat or Instagram to spread the Go Green message. We displayed special student green home projects – students built models of their dream green home using as many recycled or reused materials as possible.
For teens, we also offered a Green Careers/College Programs exhibit- our AVID college readiness program showed guests career paths & scholarships!
We also offered an additional green incentive before the festival with our online pre-registration option for community members who planned attend, and they each received a free reusable shopping bag with free gifts, coupons for our sponsors and activities for kids. It was a great turnout for our first year and we had over 60 student volunteers passing on their green knowledge!
