| Three top place winners in each the
poster and creative writing categories are awarded a $50
U.S. savings bond, and a specially embossed environmental
book for the winners' school libraries. In March, the top
50 finalists, their parents, family members, teachers and
school principals are invited guests at an evening
reception at a downtown Springfield bank, where the
finalists' entries remain on display for a week. The
fifth grade education program is part of an expanded
environmental education strategy currently being
developed by the Illinois EPA to increase understanding
of environmental issues and programs and encourage
individual responsibility for reducing air, water and
land pollution.
Internships, Internships
The Agency currently conducts the Governor's
Environmental Corps (GEC), for senior high school and
college students, during an eight week internship each
summer, and a subsidiary program, the Junior Governor's
Environmental Corps under which GEC interns present
environmental education activities at local summer youth
camps.
The Agency jointly offers two graduate student
internships. A graduate public service internship with
the University
of Illinois at Springfield, offering Masters degree
candidates the opportunity to gain two years of practical
work experience while completing their degree
requirements. In a separate program, a graduate
internship program for students with expertise in
engineering, science and occupational health and safety
places students in a one-year program to gain on-the-job
experience while actively seeking pollution prevention
modifications in the host firms' operations.
"Hello, we're from the Illinois EPA, and we'd
like you to help us..."
Agency staff each year take part in Conservation Days
programs for county youths, in a partnership with Soil
and Water Conservation Districts, and participates in an
annual Earth Stewardship Day held in April at the state
fairgrounds in Springfield. This event is co-sponsored by
the Illinois EPA, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources
and the Illinois Department of Agriculture.
As staff permits, on request the Agency provides
judges for science fairs and participants for
environmental fairs. The Bureau of Water staff
participate yearly in a Clean Water Celebration for the Illinois
Rivers Project at Peoria. The Agency produces GreenTalk,
a periodical newsletter targeted toward high school age
students.
Currently, the Illinois EPA offers educational
information at the Agency's web address:
"http://www.epa.state.il.us/".
|
The Air We Breathe
Please listen to what I have to say --
We kids must take a stand!
The "Air We Breathe" is becoming unsafe
And destroying our precious land.
The factories and cars we drive
Burn coal and gasoline,
Emitting their gases into our air
Making the "Air We Breathe" unclean.
Way up in the sky, above our air
The "ozone" helps a lot.
This gas protects us from sun's bad rays
But have people simply forgot?
The CFAs and Halon gases
Which, sadly, we now have learned
Have eaten a hole right through our ozone
And have scientists quite concerned!
There is a solution to air pollution
And it can even be fun!
Let's ride our bikes and use less gas --
Kids can help this crisis be won!
This poem, by Erin Carey,
a fifth grade student
at Most Holy Redeemer School
in Evergreen Park, Ill.,
was one of the winners
in the 1996 judging.
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