PINE GROVE - Using a $500 grant it acquired in 2013 through Schuylkill Conservation District's third annual Green Challenge, Pine Grove Area Elementary is building a mural to recognize the woodlands surrounding the school.
"It will feature ceramic tiles we made. They feature impressions of leaves the children collected, including leaves from American beech, shagbark hickory, white oak, red maple, eastern hemlock and white pine trees," said Darla Rodriguez, the elementary art teacher who spearheaded the project and is working with more than 130 first-grade students to complete it.
First-graders John Moyer and Katie Primeau, both 6, were painting ceramic pieces shaped like rocks and the size of arrowheads the color of "straw," Primeau said.
"They'll be used as texture around the tiles featuring the leaves," Rodriguez said.
"Very nice," Danette Cobb-Mc-Kinzie, a spokeswoman for one of the sponsors of the Green Challenge, Wegman's Retail Service Center, Highridge Business Park, who visited the school Tuesday.
By the end of this school year, the 8-foot-long by 4-foot-high mural made of ceramic tiles and sculptures will be bolted to the wall of the lobby, near the principal's office, according to elementary school Principal Jennifer Bowen.
"It will have a permanent spot in this building. It will be a few yards from my office. It should be on the wall before the end of the school year," Bowen said Tuesday.
"It'll be cool," said Jeena Sidleck, 18, one of the high school seniors helping the students with the project.
"It's money well spent. It's not something that'll just be there today or next week. That's something that they'll share with their children or their children's children. It'll be there for a long, long time. They're creating a piece of history for Pine Grove," Cobb-McKinzie said.
Cobb-McKinzie; representatives of the three other sponsors for the Green Challenge; and Patrick M. "Porcupine Pat" McKinney, the environmental education coordinator for the Schuylkill Conservation District, Pottsville, visited the elementary school Tuesday to see the progress the students were making on the mural.
They also discussed the Schuylkill Conservation District's fourth annual Green Challenge, which hundreds of students from kindergarten through eighth grade are participating in now.
This year's competition includes an Earth Day poster contest for kindergarten through fourth grade and an environmental essay contest for fifth through eighth grade, McKinney said.
"A total of $4,000 is available for each part of the challenge," McKinney said.
Students interested in the contest rules can visit the conservation district website at www.schuylkillcd.org.
School representatives with questions can call McKinney at 570-622-4124, ext. 113.
The annual event is dependent on financial support from corporate sponsors.
In 2011, a total of $12,000 in prize money was donated, and the competition was extended to high schools in Schuylkill County, McKinney said.
In 2012, 2013 and this year, only $8,000 was available per year, McKinney said. As a result, the conservation district had to limit the competition to elementary and middle schools.
For the past three years, the corporate sponsors were Wal-Mart Distribution Center 7030, Wegmans Retail Service Center, Jeld-Wen Inc. and Lowe's Distribution Center, all based at Highridge Business Park, McKinney said.
"Student winners can vie for $500 in individual prizes and schools can apply for $3,500 in prize money in an accompanying mini-grant program."
The mini-grant program offers the following prize amounts: first place, $2,000; second place, $1,000; and third place, $500.
In the 2013 Green Challenge, Pine Grove Elementary School was one of the four schools who won a $500 prize.
"Ms. Rodriguez submitted a proposal and it was accepted," McKinney said.
The winners are picked by a Green Challenge committee, which includes McKinney and representatives of the sponsors.
Representatives of the corporate sponsors who visited the class with Cobb-McKinzie and McKinney Tuesday included: Mike Pavelko, employee relations specialist with Lowe's, and Scott Irwin, operations manager with Wal-Mart Distribution Center 7030.