NYCWasteLe$$: 2003 Golden Apple Awards winners

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	2003 Golden Apple Awards Winners The NYC Department of Sanitation’s 2003 Golden Apple Awards program included the following three school contests. (Please note that award levels change year to year based on available funding.) • TrashMasters! Reduce & Reuse Challenge: Rewards winning schools for implementing the most successful and innovative waste prevention practices. (Citywide Winner: $5,000; Borough Winners: $3,000 each; Borough Runners-Up: $2,000 each; Honorable Mention: $1,000 each) • TrashMasters! SuperRecyclers: Recognizes schools that have implemented model school recycling programs. (Citywide Winner: $5,000; Borough Winners: $3,000 each; Borough Runners-Up: $2,000 each; Honorable Mention: $1,000 each) • TrashMasters! TeamUp to CleanUp: Acknowledges schools exhibiting the most extensive and original neighborhood cleanup projects. (Citywide Winner: $5,000; Borough Winners: $3,000 each; Borough Runners-Up: $2,000 each; Honorable Mention: $1,000 each) Submission requirements called for schools to present their students’ efforts in a binder with essays, photos, drawings, and other documentation. A judging committee for each contest reviewed all the binders and assigned each a score. The Department of Sanitation gave prizes for Citywide Winner, Borough Winner, Borough Runner-Up, and Honorable Mention to the schools with the highest scores in each grade division (Elementary, Intermediate, and High School). To be eligible for awards, schools had to meet minimum score requirements; some categories did not produce a winner. The winners for each contest, along with descriptions of their projects, appear below; bold text indicates citywide winners. In some cases, PDF files containing scanned pages of winning entries are included. For a list of winners without project descriptions, see a quick list of 2003 Golden Apple Winners. Note: To open PDF (Portable Document Format) documents, you’ll need to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. Most innovative waste prevention practices Elementary School Division Intermediate School Division High School Division ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DIVISION Brooklyn Borough & Citywide Winner • The Monitor School PS 110 Used the Department of Sanitation’s NYC Teachers RRResource Kit to engage entire school in four months of massive projects, including waste stream analysis, reuse of objects for art projects through Materials for the Arts, and producing and distributing “How to Reduce Our Trash” book. Entry clearly showed how New Standards and Golden Apple criteria were met. See pages from winning entry. Brooklyn Borough Runner-Up • Ernest Jenkyns Elementary PS 202 The third grade established an environmental awareness club, created posters, published a newsletter, recovered paper, made paper and compared properties, set up paper-making Science Fair project, and researched and wrote letters to the NYC Dept of Education requesting that they purchase environmentally friendly products. See pages from winning entry. Brooklyn Borough Honorable Mention • P 771 K @ PS 225 Ongoing composting project at Gateway Park. Special education class comprised of students with severe learning disabilities and emotional difficulties made paper with botanicals and created essays and poetry. “We feel the paper and it is like you are alive with the paper.” See pages from winning entry. Manhattan Borough Honorable Mention • Future Leaders Institute Interdisciplinary study of reducing and reusing through literacy, art, science, and music. Completed a variety of school-wide projects, including classroom reduce and reuse centers, contest to see which class threw out the least amount of paper, and investigated ways to reduce cafeteria waste. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Winner • David Porter School PS 94 Wasteless lunch competition. Continued Cozy Comfort Project, a student-run self-sustaining business where students collect and shred school’s waste paper to create pillows and stuffed animals made from reused textiles. Increased awareness school wide with “Recycling Wizard of Oz” production. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Honorable Mention • PS 87 Students signed a Reduce and Reuse Declaration, created educational posters for a bulletin board display, and completed a variety of trash-to-art projects, including bookmarks which were sold to raise funds to purchase environmental books. See pages from winning entry. Staten Island Borough Winner • The Graniteville School PS 22 Reduced 1,000 pounds of trash through monthly school-wide collection campaigns, including “white elephants” for Holiday Fair sale, card fronts donated to St. Jude’s Ranch for Children which uses them to create new cards, and donations of gently used books given to Reach Out and Read. Cited learning standards fulfilled for each activity. See pages from winning entry. Staten Island Borough Runner-Up • Special Education School P 37 Enthusiastic staff helped their multiply handicapped students to create enormous animals from reused materials, including wood and paper. See pages from winning entry. INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL DIVISION Bronx Borough & Citywide Winner • Pablo Casals MS 181 Multiple student-run activities promoting reuse: book exchange, flea market, and recycled art show. Month-long immersion in designing, advertising, and running events. Projects conceived, executed, and described completely by the students. See pages from winning entry. Brooklyn Borough Winner • John Ericsson JHS 126 Students composted their school’s kitchen and cafeteria waste using outdoor bins. Students documented their results through food logs, charts, photos, and essays. They calculated citywide savings if all NYC schools composted their food waste. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Winner • P 233 @ IS 827 This special education school created a “recipe book” for ongoing waste reduction initiatives, replicable by any school. Staff and students incorporate paper reduction and creative ways to reuse materials in art, science, social studies, literature, and music classes, as well as daily living. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Honorable Mention • Marie Curie Middle School 158 Recycling Team focuses on reducing Styrofoam use. Students research and report on plastics in the environment, reuse cafeteria Styrofoam in art projects, and create a community petition to reduce use. See pages from winning entry. HIGH SCHOOL DIVISION Brooklyn Borough & Citywide Winner • School for Legal Studies/Environmental Justice Club Month-long community reuse and recycling drives for electronics, baby clothes and supplies, books, clothing, glasses, and cell phones. Students conceived innovative advertising campaign, distributing hand-decorated paper bags through local stores. Students also initiated campaign to reduce paper waste. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Winner • P 233 @ Beach Channel High School Special Education class organized school-wide clothing drive. Demonstrated Learning Standards: applied civics, public speaking in presentations to classrooms, created posters, wrote essays, involved the community, and analyzed collection data. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Runner-Up • International High School Science and art unite in this project. Students researched and wrote descriptive essays about environmental issues, such as garbage, pollution, and global warming. Then, using found materials, each student designed and completed an art piece that expressed these issues for gallery exhibit in the school. See pages from winning entry. Staten Island Borough Honorable Mention • Tottenville High School Students described their multiple collection drives of used eyeglasses, cellphones, sneakers, diskettes, and books; wrote essays on the difference between reuse and recycling; and wrote persuasive letters to Mayor Bloomberg asking to restore plastics recycling. See pages from winning entry. back to top Outstanding recycling programs with school-wide involvement and support Elementary School Division Intermediate School Division High School Division ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DIVISION Bronx Borough Winner • Authors Academy PS 63 See pages from winning entry. Brooklyn Borough Winner • The Monitor School PS 110 See pages from winning entry. Brooklyn Borough Honorable Mention • The Blythebourne School PS 105 See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Winner & Citywide Winner • David Porter School PS 94 See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Runner-Up • The Rufus King School PS 26 See pages from winning entry. Staten Island Borough Honorable Mention • The Governor Thomas Dongan School PS 11 See pages from winning entry. INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL DIVISION Brooklyn Borough Winner & Citywide Winner • P 771 K @ IS 98 See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Honorable Mention • P 233 @ IS 827 See pages from winning entry. HIGH SCHOOL DIVISION Bronx Borough & Citywide Winner • Bronx High School of Science See pages from winning entry. Bronx Borough Honorable Mention • DeWitt Clinton High School 440 Manhattan Borough Winner • High School for Environmental Studies/Recycling Club See pages from winning entry. back to top Cleanup and beautification of schools and communities Elementary School Division Intermediate School Division High School Division ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DIVISION Bronx Borough Winner • Authors Academy PS 63 South Bronx students transformed their garden from dumping ground. Created compost from lunchroom waste using worm bins, then partnered with local gardens and non-profits to secure donations of lumber, soil, plants, and an outdoor compost site. Multi-disciplinary applications include science, math, literature, and social studies. “Our relationship with the community is blossoming.” See pages from winning entry. Brooklyn Borough & Citywide Winner • The Samuel C. Barnes Elementary School 54 Identified local environmental problems and solutions, resulting in various cross-curriculum activities. Projects included student letters to local businesses requesting seed donations, planting and observing butterfly garden, growing and donating daffodils to nursing home, adopting a local garden, student poster contest, and essays protesting illegal dumping in schoolyard. See pages from winning entry. Brooklyn Borough Runner-Up • Benson Elementary School PS 200 Multi-disciplinary projects, including potted plants to transplant in local park, creating calendars of ways to preserve the environment, writing persuasive letters, essays, and poems on reuse and environmental protection, and neighborhood campaign to reduce litter and cigarette smoke. See pages from winning entry. Manhattan Borough Winner • The Anna Silver School PS 20 Students planned architectural redesign for schoolyard entranceway using drawings and essays. Students also designed pictorial ceramic tiles to surround new front entrance, which was designed by students last year. Demonstrated multi-curriculum approach, informed by research into community history. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Winner • Alexander Graham Bell School PS 205 Created and maintained multiple school gardens, including World Trade Center Memorial daffodil garden, organic foods gardens, and flower gardens. Students composted, participated in scientific observation and measurement, and submitted essays. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Runner-Up • PS 87 School created garden plan with interdisciplinary activities incorporating math and hands-on science, designed and painted murals inside and outside the school, and made planters out of wooden crates. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Honorable Mention • PS 256 @ 831 Demonstrated structured approach to clean-up project. One class conducted neighborhood environmental survey, analyzed results with bar and pie charts, selected an area to address, organized clean up, and created a poster awareness campaign. See pages from winning entry. Staten Island Borough Winner • PS 57 The reclamation of Eibs Pond Park, an extraordinary accomplishment by disadvantaged students with diverse emotional and educational needs. Students conducted several cleanups, removed invasive plants, replanted native species, released butterflies, conducted soil and water testing, negotiated with nearby developers to donate land, and stopped illegal dumping. Students’ efforts generated massive media and internet coverage. See pages from winning entry. INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL DIVISION Bronx Borough Winner • James M. Kieran School PS/IS 123 Students continued schoolyard beautification project, preventing graffiti through ongoing school-wide collaborative wall murals. Also built planters for bulbs, as well as designed and wrote essays explaining anti-litter poster campaign. See pages from winning entry. Brooklyn Borough Winner • Beginning with Children Charter JHS 703 (with Brooklyn Transition Center P 373 K) Adolescents with special needs spearheaded this ambitious project to reclaim their school building’s neighboring park. Students measured and plotted garden design, planted flower bulbs, and wrote letters to corporations and non-profits to obtain donations of trees, picnic tables, and fencing. Park cleanup planned. Demonstrated which Standards were met through this project. See pages from winning entry. Manhattan Borough Winner • Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Teams of students chose, completed, and reported with photos and essays on their cleanup and graffiti-removal achievements in Ft. Tryon Park and neighborhood sites. Students also taught recycling and environmental awareness to area elementary schools. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough & Citywide Winner • The Chris Galas School PS 47 Students joined Baykeeper (American Littoral Society), farming oysters to restore the oyster population in Jamaica Bay, which in turn helps to purify the water by reestablishing ecological balance. Interdisciplinary activities incorporated essays and hands-on science, observation, measuring, and charting. Selected by NY Restoration Project for Special Mention. See pages from winning entry. Queens Borough Runner Up • P 233 @ 827 Planted and maintained several school gardens. Enthusiastic staff created inclusive, interdisciplinary activities for these severely multiply handicapped students, by using innovative approaches including raised beds. See pages from winning entry. HIGH SCHOOL DIVISION Brooklyn Borough Winner • Brooklyn Transition Center P 373 K (with Beginning with Children Charter JHS 703) See description for Beginning with Children Charter JHS 703 above. Brooklyn Borough Honorable Mention • Erasmus Hall Campus High School for Science and Math Green Tree Tutoring Program planted seedlings for planned memorial garden, will test soil and plant evergreens. Researched and wrote scientific essays on global warming and the environmental benefits of trees. Reused plastic bottles as gift planters. See pages from winning entry. Manhattan Borough & Citywide Winner • Louis D. Brandeis High School Innovative project to reduce dog waste in tree wells. Students collected plastic bags for dog walkers to use, placing bags in baskets they attached to each tree. Researched laws, hypothesized, designed, implemented, and documented project results. Also presented media coverage for maintaining the planted medians on Broadway, conducted cleanup and spring planting, and created memorial garden for Flight 587. Selected by NY Restoration Project for Rose Award. See pages from winning entry. back to top