Western Academy Charter School in Royal Palm Beach has been recognized as a “Green School of Quality” by the FAU Pine Jog Environmental Green School Recognition Program. The award will be presented to Western Academy at the eighth annual awards luncheon on May 25.
This is the first year that Western Academy applied for the FAU Pine Jog Environmental Green School Recognition Program. There are three different categories being recognized: Promise, Quality and Excellence. Western Academy’s Quality award is an honor and testament to all they are doing at school to be “green.”
Western Academy’s focus to enrich its STEAM program by adding an environmental component brought awareness about the importance of the environment and the impact people have on it to the entire student body, staff and administration. Staff members have begun saving their Keurig cups for the students to dismantle them, recycle the plastic and use the coffee grinds in their newly planted garden nurtured by the botany class.
Dehumidifiers have been placed in classrooms and throughout the campus, and the water extracted from the air is used to water the air purifying plants located throughout the campus that were donated by Costa Farms. The school’s Go Green Club does campus cleanups and hosted a Recycle Retail fundraising event where students created and marketed items made out of reusable products.
There are also quarterly clothing drive fundraisers where Western Academy families bring in textiles such as shoes, clothing and linens and earn 10 cents per pound from Fun Raising Dollars, a green clothing recycling company. Students at Western Academy were also excited to be part of something so global that they jumped right in to be a part of the Great American Cleanup and the International Coastal Cleanup.
April is Earth Month, and Western Academy will be celebrating its award during Earth Week, April 17 to April 24, with a lineup of activities designed to bring awareness to environmental causes. Western Academy is proud of its accomplishments and is now focusing on becoming a Green School of Excellence next year.
Visit www.westernacademycharter.com for more info.
ABOVE: Western Academy students thank Costa Farms.
