Congratulations to our Green Team Mini-Grant recipients!

KEEP is excited to announce the recipients of our 2022-2023 school year Green Team Mini-Grants!

KEEP awarded 13 grants to schools around the state, distributing nearly a total of nearly $8,000.

To apply for a grant, students had to submit a full project description including a detailed budget and information on how their project would reduce their school’s carbon footprint.

Central Sands Community High School

Students applied for a grant to improve the lighting at their school, swapping old incandescent lighting for LEDs and adding new lights to reach optimal light levels according to the energy audit they performed with KEEP.

Escuela Verde

Escuela Verde's mission includes environmental sustainability. Students noticed the school's Newline Community Cafe was generating a lot of plastic packaging waste. Their grant will buy re-usable food containers.

"If we could prepare even half of our to-go food in reusable containers, over the course of 1 year we would save around 830 plastic containers from being thrown out."

Glen Hills Middle School

Students from Glen Hills Middle School applied for Arduino Kits and cameras able to detect carbon dioxide. 

"We did research about climate change and designed various sensors using Arduino Kits to measure carbon dioxide, oxygen, hydrogen on Earth.

We were curious to see how these gases impact our Space. We submitted our proposal to NASA and NASA will be conducting our experiment in Space in May 2023."

Greendale High School

Students plan to add solar-powered drip irrigation and rain barrels to reduce water usage in their school garden.

"We plan to increase sustainability education by comparing water used last growing season to this upcoming season."

Green Lake High School

Students are building two different aquaponics systems to grow food for the school cafeteria and teach younger grades about sustainable agriculture. Some of the grant money will be used for purchasing bluegill fish for the system.

Kettle Moraine High School

Kettle Moraine students plan to replace fluorescent lightbulbs in their school with LEDs. Their grant will fund a pilot project which can eventually be expanded to the rest of the school, and then the district. 

"The grant will help our school kick-start a movement to become more energy efficient."

Lourdes Academy

Students at the school plan to buy smart power strips for teachers to save energy and money at the school.

"The power strips help shut down things when they’re not being used."

McFarland High School

“Our goal is to not only reduce energy consumption in our school but to also educate staff and students on energy consumption.

We plan to use the grant money to incorporate advanced power strips into classrooms around the school to save energy with plugged-in electronics.

By using advanced power strips, each computer hooked up to a strip will save 2-16W of energy every hour when turned off.”

Northland Lutheran High School

Students applied for money to complete several energy-saving projects as part of their Renew Our Schools efforts.

"By switching all lights to LED bulbs, we reduce our school’s carbon footprint by using less energy from the plant. A very similar outcome will present itself when we replace our light sensors and have the ability to turn off the computers in our lab. By using less energy, we reduce our carbon footprint."

Oconomowoc High School

Students applied for funding to buy a vertical growing system.

"While we were engaged in an activity to calculate our carbon footprint we learned about the impact that locally sourced food can have on the environment and the local economy.

We want to set an example of how we can grow food locally that can be used by our food service staff as well as donate fresh produce to local food pantries."

Reflo

Reflo supports high school students as environmental interns in Milwaukee. KEEP awarded its Trash Clean-Up Team a grant for its trash pick-up events.

Sheboygan South High School

Students applied for a grant to improve the school's composting system. 

"Keeping these (food) scraps from a local landfill saves about 16,400 pounds of greenhouse gasses each year.

As we expand our program we plan to collect quantitative data to improve our understanding and efficiency of our composting program, as well as add vermiculture."

Walden III Middle and High School

This school recently launched a Flex Farms hydroponics system. Students applied for funding to help pay for supplies needed to run the system.

"The main impact of this project is education as many students would become educated on sustainability and the carbon footprint.

Traditional agriculture methods are unsustainable and having an alternative will allow us to reduce our carbon.

Integrating the project into the classroom through education will allow students in our school community to leave informed on these topics."

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The KEEP program is funded with generous support by Alliant Energy, Madison Gas and Electric, We Energies, Wisconsin Public Service, WPPI Energy, and Xcel Energy. 

Published April 2023