Green Bank School Gets Five Thousand Dollar Grant From Dominion Power Foundation
Green Bank, WV – Green Bank Middle school science teacher Anne Smith had applied for a $3700.00 grant from the Dominion Foundation, a charitable organization associated with the Dominion Power Company. Much to her delight, the foundation decided to up the amount of the grant award to an even $5000.00. Robin Mutscheller, an engineer with Dominion Power and Sean Fridley, the Station Director for the Bath County Pump Storage facility presented the check to Smith in front of the 7th grade math and science class at Green Bank. Smith talks about how the money will be used.
"We have several projects in mind; the main project goes with the 7th grade, and we're going to do Project Feeder Watch," she says. "It's a bird watching program out of Cornell University. We set up bird feeders and count the total number of birds you see every day and you record that to them."
"They compile all the data from nationwide and then you can see trends in bird species through different states and counties and times, things like that. The children will also be expanding that into their own projects; what kind of feeder is the best, most frequent bird, that type of stuff."
She says they also use the cameras paid for by the grant to continue the Golden eagle monitoring station they started last year with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.
"We would like to extend that after the DNR is done," she says, "now of course we can't put carrion out because of course, we're not handling dead deer, but we can make a grain feeding station with it, and then compare the birds that came, or animals that came to a carrion feeding station vs. a grain feeding station. And that extra money that they gave us, we'll just use to keep expanding it; we can buy still cameras, some binoculars, maybe a spotting scope, that kind of thing, so it will still be used for the same type of project."
The kids in Ms. Smith's 7th grade class are excited about what they might see at the feeders. Asked whether or not this type of project makes their class more exciting, the answer was a resounding YES!