Keystone Newsletter

My classroom featured in the Keystone Newsletter! Awesome!

Key Issues in Action Duke Energy and Key Issues are Making an Impact Jennifer Coll and Kellie McClarty share their experience with bringing Key Issues strategies into their classrooms and community with the help of a Duke Energy and Keystone Science School grant.  "Thanks to Duke Energy and the Keystone Science School, Galaxy Middle School in beautiful, sunny Central Florida has started an indoor gardening program in all of our 8th grade classrooms. The project has impacted about 400 students this year, and will impact many more in years to come. Thanks to a generous grant from Duke Energy we were able to order 4 large indoor garden devices that have allowed our students to complete real-life, hands-on experiments. In a few of the plant labs the students set up each tier of the device to allow for different amounts of light, in another they manipulated the amount of water. This allowed students to see how much light and water was optimal for Photosynthesis to occur. When Spring arrives, the students will take our school's butterfly garden to the next level. We have a small outdoor butterfly garden that the students are going to beautify and expand! Students will start the seedlings inside so that they can watch them sprout and grow.  Once they are big enough, they will transplant the seedlings into the outside garden. The plan is to eventually track the Monarch butterflies that visit our school's garden. Some of our colleagues have even been inspired to start an edible indoor garden as part of a new class on nutrition for the next school year.  Students will actually be eating what they grow! Thank you for your support. Our students and teachers greatly appreciate your generosity! You have encouraged young minds to GROW!" -Jennifer Coll and Kellie McClarty