OPPORTUNITY: Grants for Sustainable Action
Put your heads together and start planning! This year, pursue your school’s sustainability goals with grants from Manitoba Education and Training and Manitoba Hydro, Lake Winnipeg Foundation, EcoLeague, ImagineAction, and more!
MANITOBA EDUCATION & TRAINING AND MANITOBA HYDRO ESD GRANTS
Together, Manitoba Education and Training and Manitoba Hydro offer Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Grants to encourage sustainable actions in your own school and classroom. ESD Grants can help students become “informed and responsible decision makers and provide them with opportunities to play active roles as Canadian citizens and contribute to social, environmental, and economic well-being now and in the future.” Social, environmental and economic well-being are the priority areas for ESD grants and topics selected for development should clearly link to and incorporate these priority areas.
Objects of the grants are to:
– Support schools in their efforts to help students acquire the knowledge, skills, values and life practices that contribute to a sustainable future
– Contribute to effective practices in education for sustainable development
– Provide students with opportunities to make decisions and take action
ELIGIBILITY
Provincially funded public schools (urban, rural and northern), Kindergarten to Grade 12, are eligible to apply. Applications are generally accepted in the spring with grants provided the following school year.
- Only one application per school
- Grant will not support wages, honoraria, or salary
- Projects that involve gardening must address summer maintenance
- School projects only, no divisional projects
- Dishwashers, dishes, water bottle filling stations, iPads, Chromebooks and tree planting projects are not eligible. Schools wishing to pursue tree planting projects should submit an application to the Manitoba Hydro-Forest Enhancement Program.
SELECTION CRITERIA
The Education for Sustainable Development must do the following:
- Address a topic from a sustainable development viewpoint, incorporating social, environmental, and economic perspectives and connected to Manitoba curriculum
- Involve students in collaborative goal setting, and planning
- Be interdisciplinary in nature, ideally involving two or more educators with different areas of expertise, who work together to plan the sustainability action project
- Have a local connection, involving students with their community
- Involve students in analyzing issues and making decisions leading to actions aimed at achieving a sustainable future
- Project must have a plan for evaluation
For more information on the Manitoba Education & Training and Manitoba Hydro ESD Grants, visit Manitoba Government.
WWF CANADA – GO WILD SCHOOL GRANTS
WWF Canada’s Go Wild School Grants inspire youth to connect with nature. The program empowers them to make a difference for wildlife through education, hands-on projects that restore habitat, fight plastic pollution, monitor species at risk, protect biodiversity and create sustainable solutions to environmental challenges at school and in their wider community.
140 school and campus projects have been implemented across Canada to stop plastic pollution, study wildlife, and restore habitat for monarch butterflies, bees, bats, birds and more. Among these schools and campus projects, more than $90,000 has been awarded to schools at the elementary, secondary and to students at the post-secondary level. Find more information and past grant recipients here!
LAKE WINNIPEG FOUNDATION
The Lake Winnipeg Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the health of Lake Winnipeg and its watershed. As a part of their mission to educate Manitobans, the Foundation assists teachers in exploring water-related issues pertaining to Lake Winnipeg and its watershed within the science curriculum by subsidizing the cost of transportation and entrance fees for appropriate field trips.
Visit the Lake Winnipeg Foundation for teaching resources such as presentations, community-based monitoring for schools, and education funding.
ECOLEAGUE
EcoLeague is a youth empowerment program from Learning for a Sustainable Future that challenges and motivates students across the country to help save the planet through community and school-based environmental action projects. Up to $400 in funding is available per school for an Action Project. Find more information here!
IMAGINEACTION
ImagineAction is a social justice program of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation that helps facilitate teacher-student-community interaction in social action. The program builds on the successful Green Street program by enhancing the strictly environmental focus. Teachers will be assisted in three ways: a series of web-based professional resources, funding subsidies to assist them in initiating their projects, and project teams will have access to an electronic showcase of projects to enable them to tell others of the good work being accomplished and to let them search for new and innovative ideas related to sustainable development. Find more information and apply here!
CARING FOR OUR WATERSHEDS
Caring for our Watersheds is an education program that engages students in preserving and improving their local watersheds. Contests for teachers and student classrooms (grade 7-12) provide the opportunity to act toward local watershed sustainability! Find more information here!
