Nine Citrus County teachers are among the record number of educators who applied for and received Splash! mini-grants through the Southwest Florida Water Management District.
This year the District awarded Splash! mini-grants to 209 educators totaling more than $413,000. That’s 72 more grant recipients than last year.
Mary Margaret Hull, lead communications coordinator, attributes the increase in awardees to an increase in promotion among the District’s school board contacts and classroom teachers, as well as decreases in school budgets.
“These teachers are receiving a small amount of money but are able to accomplish so much,” said Hull. “Mini-grant recipients also utilize the District’s great collection of curriculum materials as well as learn about other opportunities, including teacher training and District-funded field trips in their region.”
The Citrus County awardees include:
- Laurie Canfield,Academy of Environmental Science, will receive $498.95. Students will learn statistics about water wasting and ways to conserve water. They will design posters to share the information with others. These posters will be professionally printed and displayed at the school, as well as distributed to local elementary schools.
- Darla Crotsley,Citrus Springs Elementary School, will receive $2,093.75. Students will learn about the importance of water conservation, flood protection and natural systems as a result of planning and constructing their own cities and writing their own hardback books from the data collected.
- David Goddard,Academy of Environmental Science, will receive $500. Students will read the book ‘Mirage’ which will make them aware of the increasing need to protect the environment and advocate for better water management. Each week, students will present essays on what they have read. They will also collaborate on creating a book to be read to local K-5 students.
- Jennifer Jabo,Forest Ridge Elementary School, will receive $1,475. Students will learn about irrigating efficiently with rain barrels. They will actively monitor and record the amount of water collected in the rain barrels by creating graphs. The students will then become advocates for water conservation. They will have a rain barrel education day, where community members will personalize a rain barrel to keep and sign a pledge promising to make a difference and conserve water. The students will use their class web page to inform parents, staff and the community of what they have learned and done to make a difference.
- Charles Mulligan, *Academy of Environmental Science*, will receive $2,445.00. Students will understand the importance of plankton as a water quality indicator. They will sample water quality and plankton from local waters and compare their results from week to week. At the end of the study, they will teach local middle school students about the techniques for sampling and identifying plankton, as well as the importance of plankton for water quality.
- Sandy Pope,Crystal River Middle School, will receive $1,979.06. Students will research the value of the Floridan Aquifer System. They will learn about the effects of pollution, exotic plant and animal species, Florida fossils and what they can do to help protect natural systems. Afterwards, students will take a field trip to Rainbow Springs to experience the aquifer as it appears near the surface. Students will also participate in removing hydrilla from the river.
- Melony Siegendorf,Citrus Springs Middle School, will receive $2,443.80. Students will refurbish the existing land lab on campus with new Florida-friendly plants that will attract butterflies, which will be studied in the agri-science classes. Students will also grow the plants from seeds and propagate them in the school’s greenhouse and chart the water use of the land lab.
- Wendy Williams,Dunnellon Homeschool Club, will receive $1,782.00. Students will learn how various natural systems provide food, water and shelter for wildlife by taking a field trip to the Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park and by constructing a watershed model and planting a Florida-friendly garden.
- Patricia Ballenger,Inverness Primary School, will receive $1,084.44. The students will use Florida native plants to learn about life cycles, the water cycle and the importance of water conservation. They will create a small, water-conserving garden to attract wildlife, such as birds and butterflies. The students will also learn how to maintain the garden by using recycled water collected with a rain barrel. Students will also collect data from the rain barrel, rain gauges and a weather station, which they will graph and keep in a journal and notebook.
The goal of the mini-grant program is to promote hands-on water resources education that teaches students about their local watersheds and the water resources within them. Splash! mini-grants provide up to $5,000 per school on a reimbursement basis only and are available to public, private and home school teachers.
Past mini-grant projects include water quality monitoring of local lakes and rivers, the development of water-conserving gardens on school properties, and outreach campaigns designed to promote awareness of water-conserving practices.
In addition to mini-grant funding, the District offers educators free teacher training workshops, speakers for classroom presentations and free educational materials. The publications are correlated to Florida’s Sunshine State Standards and can also be ordered on the District’s web site at www.WaterMatters.org/publications/ .