Environmental Progress - Summer 1998

50 Illinois Students Demonstrate Pens and Paints Can Combat Pollution

Agency educational program rounds out 11th year with new name, broader scope

Fifty Illinois fifth and sixth grade artists and writers were honored at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield during April with a month long exhibit of their works. An honors reception was held at the museum March 21 for the pupils, their families and teachers, kicking off a display of their environment-oriented drawings, poems and essays.

Last January, students around Illinois studied and then illustrated environmental awareness in a course sponsored by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Participating schools were eligible to select two entries in each the drawing and writing categories for judging in Springfield. Nearly 200 entries were evaluated to select 50 finalists. A second judging then identified six entries to receive U.S. savings bonds and specially inscribed books for their creators' school libraries. All 50 finalists received ribbons and certificates for their participation.

The display marks a new direction for the Illinois EPA's 11-year-old environmental education effort. For the first time this year, sixth as well as fifth graders in Illinois schools were invited to participate in the upgraded, expanded and renamed program, now called "Air, Land and Water." This year's focus was "The Land We Depend On."

John Fletcher took two top awards.

Awards during the reception were presented by William Child, chief of the Illinois EPA's Bureau of Land, who told the youngsters "You all should have won, because these works show you understand the importance of the Illinois environment."

Child spoke briefly on the importance of environmental study in the classroom, and said programs such as this not only educate students but make them teachers who can in turn instruct their families and friends about protecting their environment.

Top winners were John Fletcher of Palos Heights, a student at St. Alexander school, who took firsts for poster and written entries; Alison Hunt, Lake Zurich, Lake Zurich Middle School North; Emily Waldron, Sparta, Sparta Lincoln Middle School; Brenna Matysik, Swansea, Wolf Branch School; and Kaitlyn Neises, Galena, Nativity BVM school.

At the close of the Museum exhibition, the top six entries will be spotlighted in a traveling exhibit at three Springfield sites during May, and will be added to the Illinois EPA's homepage at www.epa.state.il.us.