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Takoma Park Middle School Earns Five Stars for Environmental Science Project

Release Date: 9/6/2002
Contact Information: Bonnie Smith, (215) 814-5543

Bonnie Smith, (215) 814-5543

PHILADELPHIA – The Takoma Park Middle School has been awarded $10,170 for
an environmental science project to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.

The award is part of the Five-Star Restoration Grant Program, providing community-based partnerships grants to support wetlands and stream side restoration projects.

“This program will teach students about the processes influencing the Chesapeake Bay estuary. It will give them real life experience in wetlands restoration, " said Donald S. Welsh, regional administrator for EPA's mid-Atlantic region.

This hands-on project will help teach students how riparian buffers improve water quality as well as provide them with greenhouse management experience. The students and their families will plant and maintain riparian buffers, creating a small wetland near their school in Montgomery County, Md.

Primary Five-Star grant funding is provided by the EPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries’ Community-based Restoration Program. Additional funding is provided by EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program, EPA Region III and Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Five-Star Restoration Projects takes cooperation between at least five participants from local governments, corporations and businesses, schools and youth groups, environmental and citizen organizations, and federal and state government agencies.

Partners work together to improve water quality and restore important fish and wildlife habitats. The funded projects were selected from a competitive pool of nearly 200 applicants. Funding is based on the program’s educational and training opportunities for students and at-risk youth, the ecological benefits, and other cultural and economic benefits to the community.

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