Federal Earth Day Honors For Students At One South Jersey High School
by David Madden
RUNNEMEDE, NJ (CBS) -- This is Earth Day, an appropriate time to highlight efforts aimed at saving the planet. A local congressman traveled to a Camden County high school to give students an award for doing their part.
The 20 members of the Green Team at Triton High School were assembled in the library to meet Donald Norcross, and to get a bit of news. He told them, "You are now being awarded the Green Ribbon from the US Department of Education. Congratulations."
The honor is going to just five schools in New Jersey. The other South Jersey school to be so honored in Egg Harbor Township High School in Atlantic County.
The feds are honoring Triton for its efforts to conserve, not easy in a building approaching its 60th year in use, as well as students who promote better ways of living.
Senior Jess Van Gronigen says her peers have been receptive to the message to be better stewards of the earth. "I feel like they're more open to suggestions," she told KYW Newsradio. "It's just hard to kind of get them to openly show how they can change the environment."
This experience will help her in college, where she'll major in conservation biology.