HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — With Earth Day just a few days away, News 19 spoke with various groups to discuss how they are working to help the environment.
Students from two high schools in Madison County are getting hands-on experience, learning how to use data to protect the environment.
The Land Trust of North Alabama made this environmental education program possible. Its mission is to preserve the area’s scenic, historic and ecological resources through a process called CARE, which stands for conservation, advocacy, recreation and education.
”Our education wing is kind of the best way that we do community outreach,” Naturalist Educator Laura Lambert said.
Lambert works for the Land Trust and spearheads the environmental education programs that are offered at the schools.
Over the summer of 2024, the Land Trust spoke with a local company, PPG, to discuss the need for high school-focused environmental education. From that conversation, the high school environmental education program was born, and it officially began in the Spring of 2025.
The program was funded by a $30,000 grant given to the Land Trust by PPG.
”A lot of environmental education programs focus on younger students, and high school students are interested in conservation and environmental advocacy, but they often don’t have a way to do that,” Lambert said.
“We’re really excited about being able to partner with them and help with programs like these that get people excited about the environment and conservation,” a spokesperson for PPG said.
Lambert said the Land Trust saw this as an opportunity to help students become interested in environmental advocacy and prepare them for different types of careers, whether it’s in environmentalism or in a different STEM field.
The two participating schools are Lee High School, which is part of Huntsville City Schools, and Bob Jones High School, part of Madison City Schools.
Lee High School
The environmental education program at Lee is focused on campus biodiversity, with about 25 students participating through the school’s ‘Green Ambassadors’ club.
The students there are utilizing chemical and bacteriological testing. For bacteriological testing, the students use strips of paper called R-CARDS, which allow them to see how much bacteria is in the body of water they test.
”They’re just little pieces of paper that we can drop water samples on, and we incubate them here back in the office, and we can see how much E. coli is in the water and how many other types of bacteria in the water,” Lambert said.
The Land Trust is planning on expanding the types of research the students are doing by adding microplastic monitoring for the 2025-2026 school year.
”That’s a little bit more complicated. We use these things called Buchner funnels, and have to filter water out and then look at it under a microscope,” Lambert said. “But that’s just another way that this program has evolved in just one semester.”
Lambert also mentioned that throughout the semester, the students at Lee found that the campus has very low biodiversity and found a spot they want to diversify. They designed a native planting area for their campus, and on Earth Day, they will be planting various plants.
Bob Jones High School
The environmental education program at Bob Jones is a bit different. There, the program is focused on water quality testing and water stewardship with data. About 50 students in two AP environmental sciences classes participate in the program.
The students collect most of their data through observational research and with the help of an app called iNaturalist. This app allows them to keep a record of what they see and to help categorize each item.
“It’s sort of a crowd-sourcing identification app that we can use,” Lambert said. “What’s great is that we can use data from iNaturalist to monitor our preserves and know what people are seeing in our preserves, so we can be better at conserving the life that are there.”
All together, Lambert said the Land Trust makes each visit different from the last by introducing different topics each time, by exposing students to multiple ways they can approach environmental stewardship.
”It may not make sense to go and try to clean up this pond if there’s nothing wrong with it, but it might make sense to put our efforts somewhere else, because we know in the field of nonprofits and environmental education, money is limited, so we have to make decisions about how to best spend that time and effort,” Lamert said.
In addition to allowing these students to gain experience in environmental science, the Land Trust partners with different colleges across Madison County, such as Calhoun Community College and Alabama A&M, to give a more in-depth look into the field.
The Land Trust has people from Calhoun visit each school to talk about post-secondary options for environmental leadership and conservation. Lambert said the college is also working on starting a certificate program for environmental stewardship that would help participating students.
In contrast, the Land Trust’s partnership with Alabama A&M allows its students to participate in the university’s bird-banding research project at Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve.
Lambert believes that the data collected through these projects will show people just how valuable their conservation efforts are.
”We don’t make decisions about environmental protections willy-nilly,” Lambert said. “We’re making decisions based on data that’s being crowd-sourced through a citizen science app, like iNaturalist, or we’re making decisions based on actual field work that’s being done on our preserves.”
Lambert is hopeful the environmental program can expand to as many schools as possible in the future.
”We want as many schools as are willing to work with us for the 25-26 year,” Lambert said. “Right now we have Bob Jones and Lee, but if we could expand that to, you know, four to six schools that we’re working with next year, we would really enjoy that.”
To learn more about what the Land Trust is up to, you can check out its website here.
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