First Choice Power Fund Awards $7,000 in Teacher Grants

Program Supports Environmental Awareness

(FORT WORTH, TEXAS) – The First Choice Power Fund has awarded $7,000 in Earth Study Grants to provide Texas teachers with tools to implement projects that explore the environment. Each grant is for $1,000.

First Choice Power Fund asked teachers to engage their students in study and protection of the environment. Teachers responded with projects including studying weather, water use and energy conservation.

First Choice Power Earth Study Grants were awarded to teachers, but the real winners are the students,” said Diane Harrison Ogawa, executive director of the First Choice Power Fund. “These grants will allow students in every class – in all disciplines, including fine arts, physical education, language arts, social studies, creative writing, literature, science and mathematics – to gain a better understanding of the environment.

Teachers across the state applied. The programs will be implemented in fall 2006.The local programs funded are:

• “Kinder ‘Garden’ Watching Children & Nature Bloom,” submitted by Stephanie Magness of Hood-Case Elementary in Alvin: Students with study the growth cycle of many different types of plants. The class will have hands-on experiences planting and tending to a variety of plants in the outdoor nature center at our school by observing the seeds growing into plants. During each phase of the project, students will observe and record the stages of the plant cycle in a journal.

• “Getting the Dirt on Soil,” submitted by Margaret Meadows of Northside Elementary School in Angleton: This project includes desktops terrariums as a tool to explore the world of organisms living in our soil. Each student will have an opportunity to investigate soil using a magnifying glass. They will build a small terrarium of their own, complete with plants and worms. Since the habitat must contain everything the plants and worms need to survive, the students will learn interdependence of the environment.
  

• “School Greenhouse Project,” submitted by Cheryl Scarborough of Northside Elementary School in Angleton: Northside Elementary has established an outdoor leaning center which provides an accessible location for hands-on, multi-disciplinary, environmental education activities for students in grades one to four, including special education students. This grant will buy a heater, a ventilation system and shade cloth to make it a year round laboratory.

• “Weather Walkers in a Texas Wildscape,” submitted by Linda Walker of Hughes Road Elementary School in Dickinson: Her class will create a weather station to study how weather affects local environments, including soil, wildlife, plant life and butterflies. This awareness of weather will heighten and enhance the students’ knowledge and responsibility to respect the environment.

• EARTH PLAY: Exploration and Research To Help Preschoolers Learn Young,” submitted by Sylvia Bell of Kermit ISD: A playground will become a recreated exploration site where cement replications of dinosaur bones and other fossil will be hidden. Students will use shovels, rakes, brushes, sifters and digging tools to excavate the site. The class also will study waterways by constructing waterways, dams and reservoirs in the site.

• “Environmental Commercials,” submitted by Patrick Turner of Prairiland Junior High School in Pattonville: Students will design and create a commercial that stresses the importance of environmental awareness, focusing on recycling, proper trash disposal and pollution. The entire student body will view the commercials.

• "Kinder-Garden," submitted by Rose Gonzбlez of West Columbia Elementary School in West Columbia: "Kinder-Garden" will provide a living laboratory in which students utilize the resources to gain a greater understanding of the science, math, social studies, language arts, writing and nutrition by measuring, charting, maintaining and documenting their garden. Working in the garden also will instill leadership and research skills.

 

For a complete listing of First Choice Power Earth Study Grant recipients, visit FirstChoicePower.com/earthstudy.

The First Choice Power Fund is a division of the PNM Resources Foundation, a nonprofit established in 1983 to improve the quality of life in communities where the company's customers and employees live and work. The PNM Resources Foundation is a separate nonprofit tax-exempt corporation and was originally endowed by a gift from earnings by shareholders of PNM Resources. No customer funds are part of the endowment.

Based in Fort Worth, Texas, and with offices across the state, First Choice Power is Texas’ fourth-largest retail electric provider. First Choice Power is one of four subsidiaries of PNM Resources, an investor-owned energy holding company with $5 billion in total assets. For more information, visit FirstChoicePower.com.

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First Choice Power Media Contact
Catherine K. Carlton (469) 484-8686
Media Relations
First Choice Power

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