Baltimore County, MD Hello Baltimore County, 4 Apr 2017

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From YouTube: Clean Green 15

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Join the Team Baltimore County Public School (BCPS) Green 15 Litter Challenge and help a county school win an environmental grant.

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Welcome to hello, baltimore county., I'm your host ellen kobler.

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today we're at grange elementary school in dundalk.

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And we're here to talk about the team. Bcps clean, green 15, litter challenge.

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We are with debbie phelps, who is the executive director of the education foundation for baltimore county public schools.?

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How are you today?.

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I am wonderful, and it's great to be here at grange.

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team, bcps, clean green 15, litter challenge,.

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It's kind of a mouthful., it is a mouthful, and you know it's so exciting to be able.

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To have this initiative within baltimore county because we are a team,, we have come together, and we are going to embrace the environment, making sure it's litter, free.

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Excellent. tell us how the team bcps plays into this litter challenge.

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When we talk about team bcps in baltimore county,, we mean everyone.

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Everyone., that's from our county government,, our county executive, kevin kamenetz,.

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Our superintendent, dr. s. dallas dance, the total community throughout all 173 schools;.

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Parents, families, grandmothers, faith-based groups, community groups;.

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We are one and we do everything for the betterment of our community and our school district.. How does this work with the litter challenge?

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well,? Really it's simple: it seems,! It's all computer generated.

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So when you take a look at it,, we want our schools to work within their schoolhouse to keep our schoolhouses clean,.

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Step into the community to keep our community clean, and we want them to log in every 15-minute cleanup that they do.

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Now,, that means how many bags of trash can you pick up in 15, minutes,.

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And record that bag of trash, --, small,, medium, or large.

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But we also--, you remember, we said team bcps?

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we want to bring in the volunteers,. We want to make sure that we have everyone helping. So we also count the volunteers.

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Who are participating in our schools., so it's twofold. well,, who all can participate?.

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Can a business in the county, or a community association,.

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A senior center, can they do a cleanup as well and apply it?

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everybody. all.

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We can have advocacy groups,, we can have boy scouts, girl, scouts,.

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We can have our faith-based communities,, we can have other nonprofits.

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Everyone needs to get involved in this because it is our county and we want to keep it clean.

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So, they just do a 15-minute cleanup,. They go on the bcps website,.

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Log, the cleanup, and they choose the school who they want to give credit for the challenge.

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Absolutely. or you can go on the baltimore county education foundation website.

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Which is going to take you via a link right to the county,.

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So they can go two ways to be able to record those cleanups.

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And select the school that they want to patronize.

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Excellent. and so what happens when some of the schools win the challenge??

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What are the prizes?.

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Well,, you know it's really great to come together in may and be able to take a look at the amount of cleanups and volunteers that have been done in our schools across the county..

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So what they are going to be receiving is they are going to be receiving a grant application,, because we have environmental, friendly sponsors out in our community that want to support us.

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so from there, they get to put a grant together.

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That's going to be based on what they do in their schoolhouse,, submit it to us for approval, and the following year. They're going to continue.

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That team bcps clean green 15, litter challenge.

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Not only in cleaning up our community,, but also in other ways that they want to impact their schoolhouse.

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To provide knowledge to the children in the community in which they serve.

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Very nice., so who are the sponsors for this year??

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We are so excited.

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We have a brand new environmental, friendly, sponsor, wheelabrator,.

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Who takes care of all of our trash throughout baltimore county,.

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And they are going to be our lead sponsor this year,, along with comcast,.

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Along with the county government supporting us., so we're just very excited to see how much comes in from our partnerships.

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As to how much we can award come, may.

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okay, we're here at grange elementary.

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Because last year they were the grand prize winner for the elementary schools.

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Tell us about their participation.

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oh,. I don't think you want me to tell you about that.

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I think you want to hear it from principal wenzl, and she is going to be here with some of her staff and students,.

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And be able to share the information from grange elementary school.

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Excellent! well,, thank you so much for joining us..

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Thank you for having me, it's a pleasure. and remember, team. Bcps clean green 15,.

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Take a school, adopt it, and let's clean up our community.

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So for 2016 your school was the grand prize winner.

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At the elementary school level., what did you do with your grant? Money?.

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Well, we tied it into our school progress, plan, and blueprint 2.0, and the best person to ask with all that information.

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Is julie, mintiens,, our stat teacher., all right,, let's bring her on.

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Hi,, I'm miss mintiens, stat teacher here at grange elementary school.

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Hi,, I'm miss davis, teacher at grange elementary school.

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and we're here just to share with you what we chose to spend.

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The clean green grant money on this year, and what we chose to do was an author in residency program.

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With local maryland, author, jennifer keats curtis.

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Now, in fourth grade, jennifer keats curtis started with us and talked to us about her writing process.

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from there all fourth grade, students, researched native maryland, species,.

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And then started creating their own fictional story about those animals.

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We also created an infographic as part of our bcps curriculum,.

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And instead of opening it up to some of the other, topics, focused primarily on our native maryland species.

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We've also written opinion essays on the worthiness of rehabilitation programs,, just like those that jennifer keats curtis.

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Had spoken with us about. and the last portion of our grant money is going to be used.

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To give back to our community, and a community cleanup in may.

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With the bread and cheese creek foundation where we will work with the community members to clean up the creek in our local school community.,.

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So we have our green team club.

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And they have a special song prepared for you.

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ready, kaleigh?.

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♪, don't drop, it,, don't drop it pick it up. ♪.

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♪, don't drop, it,, don't drop it pick it up. ♪.

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That's right., don't drop it,, don't drop it, pick it up..

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They did a nice job with the song.. We are now here with tom melito, who is from the office of science in baltimore, county public schools.

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Thank you so much for joining us.. It's my pleasure. now tell us if you would a little bit about kind of the science of litter,, how litter affects the environment.

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Okay, well, as far as aesthetics go,, you know every community.

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Wants to have a sense of pride in what their community looks, like.

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So it can certainly impact people and how they feel about themselves.

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So that may be a little bit of soft science,, but as far as the hard science goes,, we now know about things called microplastics.

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And how, when that gets in the waterway that can go through the food chain,.

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And the microplastics ultimately make their way all the way up.

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To the top of the food chain, which is us.

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And then, of course, there's just the terrestrial based animals.

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And what they can get themselves into too, and that could--.

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I've had to pull off a peanut butter jar off a raccoon at one point in time,.

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I've seen down in miami beach a gull with a six pack ring around its neck.

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So, there's a lot of impact that it has.

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So it's not just ugly,. It's damaging.

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when both children and adults are part of a program.

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Like the clean, green 15, litter challenge and they're actually out there.

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Actively picking up litter,, how do you think that that works.

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With their perception of litter, and maybe their behavior?.

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I think it's very, very meaningful when they're actually taking action on that.

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My whole office is--, our outdoor science office, purpose,.

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Our mission is about environmental literacy, and it's all about students making informed decisions about the environment,.

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And then acting on those decisions,, and this completely supports our mission.

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And what we're all about.- and it also helps the school system as they work to become green schools as well.

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It's just sending a very clear message about being an environmental steward.

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And taking action, and cleaning up their community.

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And making it clear that our local--.

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Our local choices impact the global world,.

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And the global world vice versa, impacts our local world.

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Okay, and for these schools who win the clean, green 15, litter challenge.

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Either because their students did cleanups, or some groups out in the community did,, what are some interesting ways that they're using the grant money?.

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It's really neat..

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I know, for example, western tech high school down in catonsville,.

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They ended up using their money to-- where they had the students involved.

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In not only the planting of trees, but the planning of where the trees were going to go, the budget,.

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And so they ended up studying the science of trees.

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And how that impacts, the local environment as well.

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bear creek elementary school was one of the past winners as well,.

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And they took their grant winnings and they ended up building a couple century. Gardens, some butterfly gardens,.

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They had a nonprofit group, called environmental concern, come out.

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And they taught the kids all about native plants and how those impact the pollinators, and how that just trickles down through the food chain.

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Wow!, so not only does the team bcps clean, green 15, litter challenge.

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Get the kids and community members out there picking up litter,.

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But the schools that win the prizes get long term projects.

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At the school that benefit them within the environment.

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Absolutely. fantastic. well, thank you so much for joining us.

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Thanks for having me.

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And remember, you can learn more about clean, green 15, on the county website, and on facebook, and twitter..

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Thank you. So much for watching. we'll see you next time on hello, baltimore, county., (, ♪♪♪, ),.