Three teachers at Mount Airy Middle School recently were awarded a grant for more than $6,000 to be used to teach and develop teaching programs aimed at helping students learn about water conservation.

Nichole Wunderle, Donna Jarrell and Dennis France, leaders of the Green Team and teachers at Mount Airy Middle School, recently received the Philip Morris USA Water Conservation Grant.

The Green Team was created three years ago as a club to raise awareness of environmental issues, as well as a place to learn special skills. The Team does water quality testing, plants gardens, has recycle programs and takes on other projects.

Steve Vacendak executive director of NC Beautiful, and Robin Nichols, member of NC Beautiful’s board of directors and manager of sports venues for Duke Energy, were at the school recently to present a check for $6,099.10 to the school.

Wunderle is a fourth year teacher in Mount Airy. She is the leader of the Random Acts of Kindness committee, a coach and, along with Jarrell and France, a leader of the Green Team.

Their goal is to provide a different kind of learning experience and teach skills for future jobs. With this grant, they hope to create an outdoor classroom that all teachers and students can benefit from.

The grant was part of $30,000 Philip Morris provided to NC Beautiful to help educate youth in the region of the Yadkin-Pee Dee River area hardest hit by recent drought conditions. The grant was available to teachers of fifth through eighth grade students in the Yadkin-Pee Dee River watershed and used to develop a water conservation program.

The program is aimed at helping teachers, through merit-based grants, to allow students to experience scientific discoveries while instilling in them a sense of commitment to the environment and the community.

NC Beautiful targeted 22 counties hardest hit by North Carolina’s drought and that made up some of the largest water-consuming communities in the Piedmont. The Yadkin-Pee Dee River Basin represents 1.4 million people in 91 municipalities, including the employees and facilities of the Philip Morris USA plant in Cabarrus County.

Vacendak said that NC Beautiful has always addressed the environment through education, and the drought presented an opportunity to bring water conservation to the forefront.

“Now is the ideal time to educate our young citizens on the importance of responsible water use,” he said in a press release. “We specifically targeted fifth graders for our grant since they are old enough to participate in real science and to influence their families in a positive manner, but young enough to absorb a lifelong passion for the natural beauty of their state.”

NC Beautiful administered its water conservation grant in four parts: part one is a classroom section, which will include a talk about local water sources and concerns; part two is hands-on study and analysis of a local creek, stream or any local water source; part three requires the students to take what they have learned home “on assignment” and provide their family with ways to better conserve water; and part four involves a report prepared by the teachers, with their students, about the impacts of their project.