Oakview Elementary Wins Green Steps Award
Oakview Elementary School was recently selected as a 2013 Green Steps School of the Year. Green Steps Schools, an environmental education and action initiative, recognizes schools in South Carolina for taking sustainable steps to conserve, protect and restore their local environment. Projects must be significant, well established, sustainable, and documented on the school website. Most importantly, students must be learning, doing, and teaching others about their projects.
As a Green Steps School, Oakview students and staff have created school yard habitats including a butterfly garden, nature trail, and apple orchard. Students alternately plant garden crops of popcorn one year and cotton the next. Other Green Step activities include composting breakfast and lunch waste, recycling classroom items such as cell phones and batteries, reusing water glasses instead of bringing plastic water bottles, and planting a tree rain garden to discover how drainage basins help the environment.
Keep the Midlands Beautiful, Sonoco Recycling, and DHEC's Office of Solid Waste Reduction and Recycling established Green Steps Schools in 2003 as part of South Carolina’s “Resource Conservation Challenge.” Forty-one schools from 11 counties participated in the 2013 Green Steps program, completing 143 environmental projects. Oakview is one of only 11 South Carolina schools to earned Green Step Certification.