The Society of Women Environmental Professionals funded grant program, Girls Learning from Women STEM Professionals at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) event was held over two days, May 30 and 31st. Although we did not reach our target of bringing 250 girls to the DEP to work alongside female STEM professionals, 139 girls were able to participate across the 2-day event.  Clean air and clean water, storm water management, recycling and the structure of the modern landfill, and a tour of their beautiful LEED Certified Gold Building were just a few of the workshops that our girls experienced.

DEP staff scientists spoke to our Norristown Area High School 9th grade students briefly about their careers and path to DEP, as well as the information for the assigned station.

Students were divided into 7 groups before arriving at DEP at 8:45 a.m. each morning. Each group had a NASD chaperone and greeted their first DEP host who escorted the group to Breakout #1. Students moved through the breakout sessions until convening in the Delaware/Schuylkill rooms for lunch. Pizza was paid for with grant funds. During lunch, the girls had the opportunity to eat with DEP staff, as well as hear other strong females in the office. At the end of breakout #7, at approximately 1:30 p.m., the students boarded the buses and returned to Norristown Area High School.

Many thanks to the Society of Women Environmental Professionals and the volunteers at the DEP for helping our girls envision a future in STEM.

       

          

          

          

     

     

On Wednesday, April 20, 2016, the Society of Women Environmental Professionals (SWEP) of Greater Philadelphia hosted their annual Green Smarts Party at Greenberg Traurig, LLP, 2700 Two Commerce Square, 2001 Market Street, Philadelphia. The event is an opportunity to honor and present the SWEP’s graduate scholarships.

Scholarship Winner: Megan O’Donnell, Drexel University

Meghan is a Master of Science in Environmental Policy degree candidate at Drexel University, and Staff Scientist II at the Academy of Natural Sciences. Prior to attending Drexel University, Meghan received her BA in Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Meghan works on the Delaware River Watershed Initiative, where she researches the effects of agriculture methods on aquatic life by studying macroinvertebrates. She oversees field technicians, writes grants, installs scientific equipment, and conducts rapid habitat assessment and fieldwork at 35 study sites in the region.

Scholarship Winner: Kathryn McNamara, Drexel University

Kathryn is a Master of Public Health degree candidate at Drexel University, with a focus on Environmental and Occupational Health. Prior to attending Drexel, Kathryn received her BA in International Relations and Arabic from Dickinson College. Kathryn was a Fulbright Scholar in Indonesia, where she became interested in resource management and environmental exposures in at-risk communities. As a Graduate Assistant at the Dornsife School of Public Health, Kathryn created a risk communication tool for the state of Pennsylvania, and launched a social media message library for a wide-range of disaster scenarios. Her Masters thesis deals with radiation risk assessment at local nuclear power plants, and modeling for occupational cancers among exposed workers.

SWEP is grateful to Greenberg Traurig, LLP for generously sharing their beautiful conference rooms for this Event!

On Wednesday, April 20, 2016, the Society of Women Environmental Professionals (SWEP) of Greater Philadelphia hosted their annual Green Smarts Party at Greenberg Traurig, LLP, 2700 Two Commerce Square, 2001 Market Street, Philadelphia. The event is an opportunity to honor SWEP’s grant winners.

This year in addition we had the opportunity of hearing from one former grant awardee, the wH20 Women’s Water Journal.

Presenters:  Stanley L. Laskowski and Akudo Ejelonu

Stanley Laskowski is a Lecturer and Advisor at the University of Pennsylvania, a Global Water Alliance founder and former Deputy Regional Administrator for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He spoke on “The Role of Water in Women’s Lives Around the World”, and the University of Pennsylvania’s “wH2O: The Journal of Gender & Water”. Joining him was Akudo Ejelonu, in the Masters of Environmental Health and Masters of Public Health programs at the University of Pennsylvania;  she spoke on her experiences on projects in India addressing water issues.

2016 Grant Winners – This year, SWEP presented grants to:

Dawn White from Green Valleys Watershed Association, in support of their After-School Nature Explorers Club at Pottstown Middle School, for this winter, 2017

Kimberly Reed, Director, Troop Support & Experiences, and her three Senior/Ambassador Girl Scouts of Central and South New Jersey, in support of their “Refill, not Landfill” program.

In addition, SWEP is again sponsoring the Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery County Envirothons.

SWEP is grateful to Greenberg Traurig, LLP for generously sharing their beautiful conference rooms for this Event!

The Nebinger School was a Spring 2015 grant recipient, and the students participated in a Delaware River educational experience that included canoeing and land-based environmental education. Grant funds were also used to construct tree boxes and bulb plantings around the school as another hands-on experience for students.

Access a full copy of the SWEP Grant Nebinger School Report.

View the published article HERE.

     

     

     

SWEP is pleased to announce its 2014 Grant Awardees and Awards Program to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Philadelphia’s, Germantown Girls Give and Grow Project was awarded $2000.  Their goal is to teach up to 40 girls from ages 7 to 14 to learn by doing;  to plan, build, tend and harvest a community garden in Germantown, and to give the older girls leadership opportunities in working with this project and the younger girls.  There are extensive plans to evaluate this project throughout and at the end of the season to allow for enhanced success in continuing this project in years to come.  Ariel Goldring, Director of Grants & Stewardship, is the primary contact for this project. NEW: The final write up of the program can be seen at Germantown Girls Give and Grow Project.

Green Valleys Association of Southeastern PA, Inc.’s  “Habitat Awareness and Conservation Summer Camp”  was awarded $500 to allow them to purchase field materials to observe breeding of birds, bats and insects.  This Summer Camp will take place during the week of August 11-15, 2014. This week is expected to draw close to 55 children in preschool through 7th grades. GVA is requesting funds to assist in programming for the estimated 25, 4th through 7th graders who will be participating in this camp week, and expect about 50% of them to be female. The final write up of the program can be seen Green Valleys Project_2014 Final Report.

On June 9th, one of this year’s SWEP of Greater Philadelphia’s Grant awardees, the Junior Girl Scout Troop 555 of Springfield, as the culmination of their Bronze award project, officially turned over the vegetable garden that they planned, built and planted over the last 8 months for the Wesley House Shelter. Wesley House Community Corp. is a 17 unit facility-based program for families and single adult females for up to 3 to 6 months length of stays in Chester, PA.

At the garden’s dedication ceremony Troop Leaders Margie Larkin and Kristen Fee O’Connor awarded 10 girls who each put in over 20 hours of hard work to make this garden a reality.  They consulted with the Master Gardeners and created a “lasagna” layered raised bed garden.  On June 9th , in vigorous growth were green beans, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant and green peppers.

Liz Ladd and Sheiletta Corporal, the CFO of the Community Action Agency of Delaware County [CAADC, Inc.] and Director of the Wesley House respectively, said a few words about the value of the garden to the shelter and the girls’ hard work. Also, there was a representative of Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania [GSEP] and from SWEP; Elaine Feldman [Grants Chair] and Donna Suevo [Grants Committee] were also present and said a few words of admiration of the girls’ initiative and hard work.  There were additional representatives from the Shelter staff Ms. Rose and Ms. Beth and as well as residents who were taking over the garden.

The shelter staff and residents are enthusiastic about the garden, have taken over garden upkeep and harvesting and hope to continue this program in years to come.  SWEP felt privileged to support this project with a $500 grant. 

Newsletter Article Update for the 2013 the Urban Watershed (Exploring Urban Watersheds 2013 Report).

   

         

The Water Works Newsletter  – Camps and Canoes Bring Kids to the River!  See how SWEP’s grants help encourage kids to the explore the environment!

Page from FWWICnewsFallWinter2013 on SWEP-funded program

Project: Ecotricity

SWEP awarded one grant in the amount of $1,695.95 to Downingtown High School West Campus’s Energy Team. Ms. Dina DiSantis, Biology and Environmental Science Teacher, applied for this grant to expand the team’s ongoing energy conservation efforts and their technical capabilities. The team’s mission is to promote effective power management throughout the school community. The team will increase public awareness of solar energy possibilities with this grant by purchasing, installing, monitoring, and optimizing a high-efficiency mobile Ecotricity 1800W Solar Power Generator on the school’s roof. It will power computer carts containing computers from 25 classrooms. The project phases include collecting current laptop computer power usage data, installing the rooftop panel, evaluating energy consumption, and optimizing the panel’s position. The team will then calculate the school’s footprint reduction, debrief on the project’s challenges and accomplishments, and present their findings to the school body.

     

Project: “Exploring the Urban Water Shed” program

SWEP awarded a $2,000 grant to the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center to hold its “Exploring the Urban Water Shed” program for rising 9th grade girls this summer. Ms. Karen Young, Director, submitted this application to offer a two-week extracurricular experience for 12-15 girls. This program will be held in collaboration with the Philadelphia Water Department, the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center, and a University of Pennsylvania scientist. The program will allow the girls to learn about our local waterways and the need and efforts to protect them. They will be in the field “engaging with practicing professionals, taking water samples from the Schuylkill River and soil samples from its tributaries, wading in a running stream to collect macroinvertebrates and touring a municipal scale wastewater treatment facility.”

Newsletter Article for the 2012 Exploring the Urban Watershed:

August 6th was the start of our new two-week girls summer program, Exploring the Urban Watershed.  The participants were selected based on academic merit and a brief essay.  “Each one of them had a fabulous essay,” Meg said.  “It was really inspiring to read.  I was excited to put our theoretical program into practice as we have been working on it for a long time.”  The program was funded in part through a grant from the Society of Women Environmental Professionals.  The focus was on rising 9th graders and providing them with an authentic field and lab experience.   “Our goal was to get girls feeling confident and excited before entering into really important academic years.  We wanted them to see science in action – we visited treatment plants, working labs, got into the creeks and met scientists working in a variety of fields.”

The program concentrated on first understanding the context of water in Philadelphia and laying the groundwork for us to dive or should we say careful step into our Case Study.   Once the background had been set we turned to how scientists look at these rivers and the methodology they use to study them.  In a creative way we tried to get them to think about the scientific method – asking questions, making observations, looking for patterns, and finding different ways answer those questions and problem solving.  After the first week of the basics, we got into our specific case study in the Darby-Cobbs Watershed.  Here we had the opportunity to partner with the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center.  Their laboratory facility was a great resource for us to analyze our collection data.  A Digital Scrapbook is available for download.

The group went into the creek, a new experience for many of the girls and a good one thankfully!

It was a comprehensive experience.  Our intent was to look at the whole picture of our urban watersheds and step into different aspects everyday.  The watershed view lent itself to naturally finishing with advocacy and stewardship action.   This inaugural program was a success and we are looking for other partners to bring science alive in the future.

Project: wH2O Journal

SWEP awarded the University of Pennsylvania’s wH2O Journal $500 towards the publishing costs of this annual publication. Abby Waldorf, Managing Director, applied for the grant. She wrote that the journal’s mission is “to advance women’s economic and social development through the provision of water and sanitation and create a centralized body of Interdisciplinary research of women and water issues.” As many women’s lives around the world are burdened by the daily sourcing of water for their families, focusing on these issues globally will bring attention to this issue and ideally create change so that women around the world can depend on clean and plentiful water. See the current journal edition at http://wh2ojournal.com/current-issue/.