Photo: Arlington Master Naturalists
Each Spring ASNV awards Youth Education “mini-grants” to local schools and nonprofit organizations for projects involving youth that establish or enhance a learning experience about nature and conservation. Preference is given to projects that involve underserved groups and communities.
This year three grants of $500 each were awarded: Bucknell Elementary School in Alexandria, for materials to establish a student-run garden with native plants behind the school and adjacent to a local stream valley with abundant wildlife; Rockledge Elementary School in Woodbridge, to continue and enhance with new plantings an existing pollinator garden that will hopefully serve as an important stopover for migrating Monarch butterflies; and the Arlington Regional Master Naturalists (ARMN), who will use the funding to help develop an educational “toolkit” about local bird life for use by naturalists in local schools and ARMN-run nature clubs that have been established in low-income communities. The toolkit will utilize the recently published book on common Northern Virginia birds by Florence McBride which is now available in Spanish and English.