School
Receives
Top Honor
Shaler Area wins first place at this year’s Fairchild
Challenge sponsored by Phipps Conservatory.
By Nicole Tafe
GATE students enjoying a late fall Fresh Fruit Friday
by sampling apple cider from Schramm Farms.
A
fter a hard year’s work, Shaler Area High School students won
the top award at The Fairchild Challenge sponsored by
Phipps Conservatory.
The Shaler team placed first overall in the high school category in
the yearlong environmental challenge, which consisted of five different
challenges. Students receive scores for each challenge and the scores
are totaled for the overall winners. The students competed against
more than 20 regional schools.
The Fairchild Challenge is a free, multidisciplinary, standards-
based environmental education outreach program designed to give
high school and middle school students an opportunity to creatively
shine. By appealing to their innate sense of curiosity about the world
around them, the program invites students to investigate the thorniest
environmental issues, devise imaginative and effective responses to
those issues, and take action to address them.
Developed by Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami, Florida,
and adopted by Phipps as a satellite partner in 2008, The Fairchild
Challenge offers a menu of interdisciplinary challenges for grades 6 to
8 and grades 9 to 12, attracting students of diverse interests, abilities,
talents and backgrounds. It empowers young people to engage in civic
life and encourages them to become energetic and knowledgeable
members of their communities.
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“Shaler Area became involved with this program about six years ago
because it provides unique challenges to our students and encourages
them to think about local issues and how to improve our community,”
says Kathleen Elder. She and colleague Christina Palladino, sponsors
of The Fairchild Challenge group at Shaler, have been inspiring
students in the district for many years. Elder will be starting her 21st
year this fall, and Palladino will be starting her 20th. Currently they
are both Gifted Education teachers at the high school. “I like teaching
at Shaler Area because there is a real sense of community and family
within the workplace,” notes Elder.
“Our Gifted Education students started working toward a Green
Initiative in the 2009-10 school year due to the fact that our high
school building has so many windowless classrooms,” recalls Palladino.
“The goal was to put low light tolerant plants in all classrooms. Then
came the idea of a greenhouse in which to work. It was funded by The
Grable Foundation. Dr. Don Lee was of great help to get our grant in
place.”
Along with this year’s first-place finish in The Fairchild Challenge
competition, the team from Shaler Area received $1,000 in grant
money for the school.
“Winning helps us to promote the intelligence and talents of our
students to the greater Pittsburgh community,” says Elder. “The kids
are proud of the work they produce and the recognition received. The
grant money awarded through the win allows us to continue some of
our ongoing programming.”
In the eight years that Shaler Area has participated in this challenge,
the team has placed first six times and second twice. This year, Penn
Trafford, Central Catholic and Elizabeth Forward tied for third place
and West Mifflin Area High School earned second.
“The diversity of areas where our students demonstrated their
talents in winning this award is impressive,” adds Elder. “Students
completed challenges that required everything from architectural
drawing to cooking, artwork to writing, sewing to research skills,
teaching to photography. And many times we are asking them to go
outside of their comfort zone—trying foods they haven’t experienced
before, researching/writing a paper on a topic where they had little
prior knowledge, working collaboratively with students of other grades
and experiences—and it’s important to note that all of these activities
are completed on the students’ own time and for no credit/grade.
Their dedication and effort makes all the difference in this success.” ■