The Dover Eaglets of Dover Elementary School in North are going green for the 2008-09 school year with help from a New York firm.

It all started with a kindergarten field trip to the South Carolina Aquarium.

In November, Dover kindergarten teacher Jennifer Fanning took her students on a standards-based field trip to the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston. The field trip was made possible through an aquarium grant encouraging teachers to make experiences a part of their curriculum.

Before visiting the aquarium, students completed in-class activities classifying collections of living and non-living things and determining their characteristics. They also studied the properties of water and talked about why animals need water.

Other pre-trip activities included observing living things in the school yard, investigating habitats in the different regions of South Carolina and creating shoe-box dioramas to represent habitats and animals. An orientation video on the upcoming aquarium trip completed their experiences.

At the aquarium, the students enjoyed a two-hour habitat program, reviewed the lessons they learned in the pre-visit classroom activities and touched several aquarium residents, including snakes and sea urchins. The aquarium’s coastal gallery allowed students to discover how animals use different types of shelters and a scavenger hunt was the highlight of the coastal plains gallery experience.

The South Carolina Aquarium challenged students to create a project to help the environment. Back at school, the students were eager to help their habitat and planned a recycling project in which the entire school could participate.

To fund their idea, Fanning posted a proposal on the Web site DonorsChoose.org for supplies and materials to start the recycling project. DonorsChoose.org is a Web site teachers use to post materials and resources that they would like to have in their classroom. Donors view these proposals and then choose projects to fund.

Some of the items that children wanted for the recycling project included bins for collecting paper, a laminator and reusable grocery bags.

In March 2008, Dover Principal Cynthia Strozier received a phone call from Nine West Footwear Corporation, part of Jones New York, Inc. The phone call was concerning the DonorsChoose.org proposal viewed by Kimberly Stoll and her colleagues at Nine West from New York. They had been looking for a classroom/school to sponsor for an environmental project.

Fanning and Strozier discussed the project with Stoll and the benefits that it would bring for Dover students and the Dover community. Within a few weeks, Nine West Corporation held an employee fund-raiser in which they raised $3,700 for Dover’s recycling initiative. A check was mailed to Dover, along with crystal green apple pins for all of the faculty and staff.

A task force of teachers and staff members was put together at Dover to determine how to best spend the money and jump-start the recycling initiative.

The school’s hope is that this will be a community-wide project. Dover currently recycles batteries and plastic bags and will continue to do so. Dover’s Recycling Initiative will officially launch at the beginning of the 2008-09 school year.

The staff at Dover Elementary is thrilled to have Jones New York in the Classroom as their partner in this project.

Fanning said, “A big thank you goes out to Jones New York in the Classroom for believing in a small school with a big heart. This project would simply not be possible without their monetary support.”

She said they are also appreciative of the South Carolina Aquarium and their education department for hosting free, standards-based programs.

All teachers are encouraged to visit www.scquarium.org to learn more about their free standards-based programs. If you would like to know more about Dover’s Recycling Initiative or how you can help, please contact Jennifer B. Fanning at 803-247-2184 or log on to Dover’s Web site at http://des.ocsd5schools.org.

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