COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITY COMPETITION
| GreenSTART 2008 Program Questions & Answers |
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| Can non-Atherton neighbors participate? |
Absolutely! All local citizens are welcomed and encouraged to participate, whether living in Atherton or not or attending schools in Atherton or not. Merely follow the same guidelines and use the same forms that are available on our web site, at AthertonGreen.net. |
| Can schools outside of Atherton participate? |
Absolutely! Any school that would like to receive the same package of information being distributed to Atherton schools should have their principal contact the Atherton EPC about participating. We are happy to include you in our program! |
| Can home schooled students participate? |
| Absolutely! You can register as an independent student or throw your participation behind the school of your choice. |
| We will take the age of the participants into consideration as well as the level of involvement of their sponsoring adult, and these will inform our judgments relative to other projects. We will use the 9-point criteria listed on our "How we are Judging Page," with a heavy emphasis on the environmental impact of the project. We will also carefully evaluate the statement of needs provided by the participants in the Project Summary Form, as well as the attractiveness and persuasiveness of their display and presentation at the Fair. We will construct a matrix for assessing each project that will result in a combined “grade” for each project. We estimate that Community voting during the Fair will comprise 40% of the final “grade” received by the projects. |
| There will be cash prizes distributed based upon the amounts raised through Resident Participation and Sponsorships. Please keep checking our Prizes Page! |
| We recognize that it takes time to evaluate, design and prepare materials that can enable you to launch an effective environmental project. (We know, because we have tried!) We know the process of designing the project will provide a challenging educational experience for all involved. We hope that, after you have designed it and especially if you have won a prize and become eligible for project funding (should you need it), that you will follow through with launching the project. Your project launch could commence starting right away, or you could even wait for the next school year—but that will be your choice! |
This is actually acceptable, so long as you follow the current guidelines and so long as you have a plan for this year to effect a change that will be an environmental improvement from what is currently being done. We are delighted to support those students who have already taken the initiative! |
| For many great projects, this is actually quite hard to do. We are working on finding an expert to help us do these assessments for GreenSTART. We will keep you posted on this. |
| Who may initiate a GreenSTART project? |
Students, teachers, school administrators and even parents can all take the initiative to conceive and help students design a GreenSTART project. |
| What are the requirements for something to be a GreenSTART project? |
Students Projects need to seek to improve some current aspect of the environmental performance of the school, the students, school staff, residents or to affect the local area in or around the town. The project needs to have a reasonable likelihood of success, but need not be limited to Atherton. Each project must have a minimum of two students (and we recommend three or more) working together and one adult sponsor, who is willing to provide the necessary guidance for the project (based upon the age and capabilities of the students). |
| Is there a limit to the number of entries per school?: |
| No, in fact, the more projects and the more students participating from each school, the better. |
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