March 25, 1998
Parents' efforts net $10,000 for school
By Eric Dick
Herald editor
Three mothers, bound only by concern for the environment and education, scored a "coup" recently when their 30-day blitz of a grant request secured $10,000 for new science equipment at Westwoods Elementary School.
The Toyota Tapestry environmental sciences grant, written only a month before its January deadline by Long Lake Township residents Tina Allen, Gail Dall'olmo and Valary Schroeder, was "like a coup," Westwoods Principal Larry Dobler said. "Eric Drier, science coordinator for the district, said this is like the premier science grant in the country."
Westwoods will use the grant to buy a Global Positioning System, digital video camera, scanner, CD writer, microscopes and other technology as well as environmental testing equipment to study the Bullhead Lake Natural Area. The data later will be presented in a CD-ROM computer disk, a multimedia tour created by the students.
Toyota each year receives more than 800 grant requests, some prepared over years. So Westwoods success in acquiring one of the 50 available stunned the three grant writers.
Schroeder, who "really had very little expectation" of getting the grant, turned to her son Justin with amazement on a ride home from school when he announced that her efforts were successful. "I think I stopped the car in the middle of the road," she said.
Aside from Allen, who as township treasurer has written grant requests before, Schroeder and Dall'olmo were unfamiliar with the process.
They teamed up, upon a request from Dobler. "We were the ones he knew would make the time to get this working," Allen said.
They split the workload evenly and later proofread each other's efforts.
"I thought we would have to do it two or three times before we got some money," Allen said. "But I don't know, as luck would have it we didn't."
Lucky? Like the lottery?
"When you win the lottery, all you do is buy a ticket," said Schroeder, a home-schooler who takes her son to Westwoods for art and gym classes. "We felt a little bit more personal about it than that."
Indeed, the Bullhead Lake Natural Area has marshaled an enormous amount of grass-roots support to preserve it from development. Staked out for homes in 1996 by developers NST Partners, the 28 acres of pristine woods was bought last December in a land contract by a citizens group called Friends of Bullhead Lake and Long Lake Township. A state Natural Resources Trust Fund grant will pay $108,000 of the purchase price. Donations have raised at least $94,500 and more fund-raising is under way.
The parcel of lands sits near Long Lake and includes lake frontage, trials for hiking, bird-watching and cross country skiing, and an old-growth forest.
With the grant, Westwoods plans to make the Bullhead Lake Natural Area an extraordinary outdoor learning laboratory. The elementary students will document water quality, geological features, property boundaries and plant and animal species and use the data to create a CD-ROM for the school and township. Future Westwoods classes will update the CD-ROM.
"Basically, instead of the township spending money for consultants on this (property), Westwoods is our consultant and the kids will be doing that," said Allen, whose two daughters and a son attended Westwoods.
"I don't really have children that are going to benefit from this," she said, "but, as treasurer of the township, we're all going to benefit. And it's not just the savings, but it's the children, getting them involved with this. ...
"So they'll be making an impact on their community as well as learning what the scientific process can bring you to."
And with $10,000, the scientific process can you bring you to a world of environmental wonders. Later this year Westwoods science teacher and project director Stan Ronk will lead students in data collection. With the Global Positioning System, students will build detailed maps of the Bullhead Lake Natural Area. With the digital video camera, they will record views of the areas that should prove useful in planning. With a computerized data sampler they can investigate the affects of temperature, light and weather on ecosystems.
"They will be able to see and do more things with this equipment than they ever would be able to do in an elementary environment," Principal Dobler said. "I think it will really turn two or three kids on to be scientists. I really do.
"You know, in this business you write grants all the time," he said. "And then you get this coup de grace of 10,000 bucks - you can't stop smiling."