Charleston students to collect data for climate study thanks to grant

CHARLESTON (AP) - Students at two Charleston County elementary schools will have the opportunity to collect data and help scientists at NASA and NOAA who are analyzing data for an international climate change study.

A $2,500 Department of Health and Environmental Control grant will help fund the project for students at James B. Edwards Elementary and Mount Pleasant Academy, The Post and Courier of Charleston reported.

The "Champions of the Environment" grant program aims to help kindergarten through 12th-grade students be environmental stewards in their communities, said Amanda Ley, the grant program coordinator. It's designed to support student-led projects that focus on pollution or waste reduction, water or energy efficiency or preservation of natural areas.

"Having these projects at school where they spend a large portion of their day empowers students to take environmental action and appreciate the environment," Ley said. "It gives them a chance to get outside and appreciate the environment and understand their role in protecting the environment."

Thirty-five schools from across South Carolina applied for the grant, and 10 were selected. Charleston's awardees will tackle two projects: restoring a salt marsh habitat and contributing relevant data to an international database for global analysis of climate change.

Most of the grant funding for James B. Edwards and Mount Pleasant Academy will be used to set up weather stations on both campuses.

"They're going to be immersed as junior meteorologists. They're going to be empowered as environmental stewards," Ley said. "It's going to be an engaging and fulfilling school year for those students."

Nancy Platt, a CCSD itinerant gifted and talented teacher, submitted the grant applications. She has spearheaded a school "Green Team" at Edwards for the past five years. It started as a small club, she said, but has expanded into a school-wide initiative. This year, Platt is launching a Green Team at Mount Pleasant Academy.

"I am filled with immense pride for my James B. Edwards Green Team's accomplishments," Platt said. "We are thrilled to be taking our model to a sister school, Mount Pleasant Academy, where this grant will be used to foster upper elementary school students as citizen scientists."

Students will use the weather stations to measure and track things like relative humidity or barometric pressure and will learn how to upload data onto the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment database, Platt said. The international database is used by scientists from organizations, including NASA and NOAA, Platt said. Students will also have access to the international database, where they can look at weather trends in other coastal environments and compare them to regional or international data.

"To be part of that sort of international database you can just go exponentially with this to all sorts of applications later in life," Platt said.

Real-time data from the project will also be shared with a local television station's meteorology team.

Around $500 of the grant funds will be used to build "grow stations" at Mount Pleasant to kickstart the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium's "From Seeds to Shoreline" program on campus, where students will germinate, harvest and eventually transplant sporobolus plants to salt marshes. . Edwards students have participated in the seed project for several years, Platt said.

Students at both schools harvested the seeds in November and will likely transfer them to germination stations in January. In May, they will transplant the grass to a marsh in Wadmalaw's Bears Bluff National Fish Hatchery.

Schools in the From Seeds to Shoreline program typically work with a mentor from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources identify marsh areas that have eroded from over boating or pollution, Platt said.

"Where this marsh grass is receding, we start losing all the soil because the roots of the marsh grass fix that pluff mud. They help hold it in place," Platt said.

Mount Pleasant Academy Principal Kim Jackson said she was looking forward to the opportunities students will have to learn about their communities and the environment through the grant.

"We have the blessing of backing up to the marsh here at our school," Jackson said. "I think it's important for kids to see beyond themselves and connect with the community. ... It's all part of growing a person and not just teaching a child."

Platt agreed. "I really hope that they establish an attitude of gratitude. Because it's so easy for kids to take what we have in our community for granted," she said.

She's seen first-hand how young people can make a positive impact on their environment.

"If you can just impact a couple of kids to love the Earth and love and take care of their environment, then it's worth all the hard work," she said.

The grant program is sponsored by DHEC, Dominion Energy and International Paper, with assistance from the Environmental Education Association of South Carolina.