all Funded Projects - by year
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The Carmel Green Teen Micro-Grant Program has funded 67 youth-driven projects to help make Carmel/Clay Township a greener, more sustainable community.
For projects that took place 2009-2018, click on any project title or photo below to visit the webpage dedicated to that project. Projects from 2019-2021 do not have individual webpages, but are described here. |
2021
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Community Backyard Conservation Projects
Helping Ninjas taught students via their website and in-person through educational programs about the many, simple things everyone can do to help conserve water, to organically garden, and to compost waste. Students helped build and promote compost bins to be used as a pilot program to see if there is interest in a shared neighborhood composting program. They will share their results on their website, HelpingNinjas.com.
Founders Park Native Pollinator Garden
Helping Ninjas pulled invasive species plants at Founders Park and planted native Indiana plants that attract pollinators, such as bees and butterflies. Plants that have grown in Indiana for a long time and are healthy and helpful are called "native" plants. Invasive plants are those that were never from Indiana, and they often bully and crowd out the native plants that are needed for a healthy ecosystem. The Ninjas will continue to educate other students to bring awareness to the importance of pollinators and the harmful effects of inorganic pesticides and invasive species.
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Project No Students in the Heat
Students at University High School funded shade sails for use in their Outdoor Environmental Lab. The shades give students the ability to be outside even when the UV rays are at their strongest. The UHS Outdoor Environmental Lab is utilized by science teachers and enjoyed by students, staff, and visitors. This educational outdoor learning area contains organic garden beds, compost bins, pollinator gardens, picnic tables, Leopold Benches, and more!
Ten-thousand Trees in Carmel
Did you know that volunteers in Carmel have a goal to plant 10,000 trees by the year 2030? Students in the Helping Ninjas club will purchase tree saplings and seeds and work with the father-daughter group called Carmel Clean-up Crew to help them with their goal of planting 10,000 trees in Carmel in ten years. According the the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is right now. Visit their website here, for handy tips on planting trees and for access to discounted healthy, native Indiana tree saplings.
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2020
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Natural Weed Control in Community Garden Paths
Weeds in the paths surrounding the 100 garden plots were a big problem at the CCS Plots to Plates Organic Community Garden. Girl Scout Annie D. researched, organized, and led a natural (non-chemical) weed-control pilot project to address this problem. The project involved weed-whacking or tilling a portion of the garden paths and leading a group in laying three layers cardboard, and then covering the cardboard with 4" of large wood chips to prevent weeds naturally by shading them out. The project was so successful at suppressing weeds, the gardeners used the same method to complete the rest of the garden paths in 2021. Kudos to the team of over 50 volunteers who found a way to safely complete this project during a pandemic!
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2019
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Pollinator Garden and Birdhouses for Central Park
Orchard Park Elementary Green Cubs planted 380 plant plugs of native Indiana pollinator plants in a recreation area west of the Central Park Monon Center. They also built four bluebird houses, which are installed by the lagoon. Encouraging native plants to grow helps prevent the growth of invasive plants, and gives pollinators like butterflies and bees the right kind of food to live and grow.
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Food Pantry Garden Plot
Helping Ninjas continued to plant and donate locally grown organic vegetables in their garden plot at the CCS Plots to Plates Organic Community Garden. The 4’ x 15’ garden plot serves as an educational tool for students at Carmel Clay Schools. In 2019, the Nnjas donated over 400 pounds of fresh tomatoes and other vegetables to Second Helpings Food Pantry.
Pollinator Garden & Nature Educational Path
at Founders Park 
Helping Ninjas students from College Wood Elementary School planted pollinator plants and installed educational labels on them near the education center at Founders Park in Carmel. These native Indiana plants encourage butterflies, bee, and other pollinators to live and thrive. Native pollinators are vital for pollinating Indiana agricultural crops such as alfalfa, melons, soybeans, and sunflowers.
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Green Team Spices it Up
Smoky Row Green Team students purchased, helped install, and will maintain a vertical herb garden on the wall of their school. The herbs are used in the school cafeteria where the entire school community will taste and try out the various herbs in different recipes. This project inspires students to try new foods, to become familiar with how to grow plants, and to understand plant life cycles and how plants keep our air clean.
UHS Second Floor Hydration Station
Students at University High School purchased a water bottle filling station for the second floor of their school. Re-filling water bottles is much more environmentally sustainable than purchasing disposable ones. UHS has two other hydration stations, funded through a Carmel Green Teen grant in 2015. The students were able to modify standard water fountains to become water bottle refilling stations.
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2018
Helping Ninjas students from College Wood Elementary School came together on Memorial Day Weekend, spending the holiday removing non-native invasive plants in three large areas of Founders Park in Carmel. Once cleared, the soil in these areas was improved and planted with plants native to Indiana which encourage butterflies, bee, and other pollinators to live and thrive.
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The Orchard Park Elementary School Green Cubs designed, distributed, and promoted reusable grocery bags to the entire school community. The reusable shopping bags included fact sheets about why it is important to use the bags and why it is important to reuse and recycle in school and at home. The project included daily announcements and a Green Bag Challenge to see which classrooms and individuals could use the bags most often.
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2017
University High School students built, installed and taught their school community about bat boxes and the benefits of mosquito eating bats in their outdoor spaces. Students researched bat population conservation methods and found that bat boxes provide a safe haven and resting place for the animals. These bat boxes are an interactive educational tool and natural pest control for their Outdoor Classroom.
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The "Don't Flip It! Save It!" project provided and promoted reusable water bottles instead of disposable ones at Smoky Row Elementary School. Students from the Smoky Row Green Team were happy to promote the bottles for the end of the year track and field day, where many disposable cups and water bottles are normally used.
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Forty-nine volunteers from Boy Scout Troop 120 pulled invasive Japanese honeysuckle vines and replaced them with plants indigenous to Indiana to restore native habitats at River Road Park in Carmel. Led by Drew B. for his Eagle Scout project, the team logged in over 190 man hours of work. Japanese honeysuckle damages forest communities by out competing native vegetation for light, below-ground resources, and by changing forest structure, which endangers native plant and animal habitats.
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2016
Smoky Row Elementary Green Team students promoted and distributed reusable shopping bags during Earth Week. Students learned how reusable bags save resources and produce less waste. Students created an educational brochure distributed to each student in his or her free reusable shopping bag, and video announcements described the benefits of using reusable rather than disposable bags.
Scouts in Boy Scout Troop 109 replanted a long neglected Teaching Butterfly Garden in a Woodbrook Elementary School courtyard area. The area now contains a mix of hardy annual and perennial flowers that will create habitats for Indiana’s native butterfly populations and pollinator insect and bird species. Second grade students will use this garden as part of their curriculum, learning about the life cycle of a butterfly.
Orchard Park Elementary School Green Cubs students planted a Tulip Poplar tree on campus this year to help everyone remember the many benefits of trees and their role in a healthy environment. The Green Cubs have learned and taught other students about how trees benefit our environment by providing habitats for insects and animals, protecting the soil from erosion, cleaning our dirty air, and providing shade and beauty.
Members of Boy Scout troop 120 were joined by community members to enhance and expand a nature trail near the Millbrook neighborhoods. Improvements included clearing the existing trails and expanding the trail along a creek to enable visitors to enjoy easy access to nature and wildlife on the DNR owned property. Scouts also created and installed simple post-markers to guide visitors through the trails and encourage people to enjoy and conserve natural areas.
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Members of Boy Scout troop 202 and their families built a large, wooden, 3-compartment compost bin system at the CCS Plots to Plates Organic Community Garden. Educational signs were added to the bins to teach gardeners how to use them. The community garden generates lots of organic waste, and composting will allow the garden scraps to be broken down and utilized to feed future garden plants.
Scouts in Boy Scout Troop 125 noticed that many Indiana Ash trees in the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church public areas had been destroyed by the invasive insect pest, the emerald ash borer. These large trees had provided habitats for many different animals while helping purify the air. The Scouts replaced ten of the removed Ash trees with a variety of healthy, drought tolerant and disease resistant shade trees native to Indiana.
Students in University High School science classes have found a unique way to use chickens to connect with nature, to learn about our food system, and to understand various complex ecosystems. Student volunteers and community members are maintaining and caring for the chickens on campus on a daily basis. Waste from the chicken coops will be composted and used to fertilize the UHS teaching and pollinator gardens,
both of which were funded by the Carmel Green Teens in previous years. 
Scouts in Boy Scout troop 576 created a self-guided tour of the CCS Plates to Plots Organic Community Garden. The garden tour consists of seven educational stations describing the areas of the garden that benefit the environment. The scouts worked with representatives from the school and garden to design and install educational signs at each station and to create hand-held maps leading a visitor from one station to the next.
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2015
Orchard Park Elementary fifth graders chose to promote and facilitate event recycling at their school by purchasing five Clear Stream portable recycling collection containers as well as promotional items. They use the containers at after school events such as Movie Night, Literacy Night, Ice Cream Social, and more. Students from the OPE Recycling Cubs attend the events and display posters and wear stickers that remind others to recycle.
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Clay Middle School students noticed that many of their fellow students were throwing their plastic bottles in the trash instead of the recycling bin, so they decided to take action. They first educated students about how to save money and the environment by using reusable water bottles through posters and a website. Students also worked with administration to install a water bottle refilling station near the school cafeteria to discourage disposable water bottle use.
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The Carmel High School Environmental Sustainability Club hosted an educational gathering at the CCS Plots to Plates Organic Community Garden on May 23, 2015. Various local groups such as the CCS Green Team, Earth Charter Indiana, Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, and others were invited to share information and teach visitors about what can be done on a local level to live healthier, more sustainable lifestyles.
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The University High School EcoBlazers built a perennial flower garden specifically designed to attract and support Monarch butterflies. While the garden’s focus is providing for the Monarch butterfly, the plant selection attracts a wide variety of butterflies, moths and pollinators. The Blazer Butterfly Garden will meets official criteria set by monarchwatch.org that allows it to be registered as an official Monarch Waystation.
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To promote reusable water bottle use, the students on the University High School Stewardship committee discovered that there needed to be easier ways for students to fill water bottles in their school. With their Carmel Green Teen grant, they purchased and installed a water bottle filling station and and worked with the Athletic Department to purchase a second station. Initial estimates suggest that these stations have led to the reduction of at least 80 plastic disposable water bottles daily each.
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Members of the Carmel High School National Honor Society are providing event recycling beginning the 2015-2016 school year. They are creating recycle stations at each event where NHS members will be present and earn group hours to promote recycling of plastics, aluminum, and paper. Recycling will be provided at select high volume athletic, performing arts, and other after-school events. They are working with the school administration to streamline emptying the bins as well as ensuring that the recycling dumpsters can accommodate the extra recycling.
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2014 |
Students in the Carmel High School Sustainable Living Club created a pollinator garden for butterflies, bees, and birds in the CCS Plots to Plates Community Garden‘s meditation area. This garden, planted with perennial plants native Indiana, will increase biodiversity in our area through providing a habitat for butterflies and other pollinators and will serve to educate our community.
The University High School EcoBlazers complimented their Carmel Green Teen funded community garden created last year by creating and implementing a composting system and building a multi-purpose rain harvesting structure. The students and staff will compost school lunchroom waste for use in the community garden, and the rain barrels adjacent to the new structure will provide needed water for their teaching garden.
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Girl Scout Ciara Pickering chose to educate elementary aged students about preserving the environment. Students learned about recycling and other various ways to preserve the earth through hands-on activities and crafts at Forest Dale Elementary in conjunction with the Extended School Enrichment (ESE) program.
Members of the Carmel High School Do Something Club thought that too many kids these days are not doing much to help the environment, so they created a lesson plan about the benefits of trees for the 104 first graders at Smoky Row Elementary School. Their lesson involved an interactive PowerPoint, singing, prizes, and a tree seedling for each student.
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The Carmel High School TEDx Club organized and hosted a TEDx Conference that took place on April 19, 2014. This conference was based upon the official TED layout with multiple speakers talking for 18 minutes or less. A portion of these talks and videos discussed environmental sustainable living and how to implement simple practices in daily life to minimize one’s environmental impact.
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2013
The Carmel Learning Center is doing a collection of mini-projects which, when combined, make a big difference. These include recycling, reducing paper waste, replacing disposable Styrofoam cups with reusable cups, and adding potted plants to their classrooms.
Daisy Scout Troop 215 decided to help out visitors at the CHS Arts Garden with their project, planting several types of flowers that naturally repel mosquitoes so that the visitors won’t need to use bug spray. The also created a sign to educate visitors about the benefits of using natural forms of bug repellent over bug spray.
Students at Smoky Row Elementary School raised awareness about how easy and fun it can be to reduce, reuse, and recycle even unusual items with their cleverly named crayon reusing and recycling project.
The CHS Art Club added a pergola and butterfly bushes to their new ArtsGarden. The pergola will house a rotating display of recycled art and focus on encouraging over the 5000 students, faculty, and staff at CHS to consider reducing, reusing, and recycling.
Students in the Carmel Middle School Green Team student club provided the Carmel community with 1000 free native Indiana tree seedlings. They educated others, hosting a workshop on how to plant trees and demonstrating how to do so while planting three large trees on school grounds
The Carmel High School Do Something Club decided to do something environmentally friendly this year by planting four large trees at Hamilton County’s River Road Park to provide both environmental and aesthetic benefits to the people of Carmel.
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Towne Meadow Elementary School students launched a crayon recycling program at their school to teach about the endless possibilities for reusing and recycling even unusual items. They also chose to purchase recycled crayons from the same factory that recycled their crayons.
Student members of Carmel High School’s Green Team tackled the issues of water and energy conservation through their projects Rain Barrel and Composting Workshops and Switch on the Savings in free community workshops held at the CCS Plots to Plates Community Garden, and in their school.
Prairie Trace Elementary students purchased tree seedlings for each student and educated the school about the importance of trees through posters and morning announcements.
The College Wood Elementary School Recycling Club promoted and facilitated mixed recycling at their school through an educational campaign and the purchase of seven large, wheeled recycle bins, increasing the school’s recycling rates by over 78%!
Woodbrook students educated their school community about the overuse of plastic bags and encouraged the recycling of plastic bags by offering 1 cent for every plastic bag recycled.
The University High School Green Club created a school community organic garden. Using a hands-on approach, students, teachers, and volunteers demonstrate organic gardening techniques and share their discoveries with the community. This is an ongoing project, with phase two of the project also funded through a Carmel Green Teen Micro-Grant
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2012
The CHS Green Shower Power club received a Carmel Green Teen micro-grant for $750 to help fund new push-on auto-off buttons and low-flow shower heads in the school and community locker rooms. The new low-flow shower heads and push buttons will be utilized by 140 Carmel High School Swim Team athletes, 440 Carmel Swim Club members, and numerous student and community recreational swimmers.
Carmel Girl Scout Troop 801 created and implemented an event called the “Bikeyard 100″ at Creekside Middle School to encourage kids to ride their bicycles safely and more often. This eco-friendly idea prevents pollution by reducing the number of cars on the road and also promotes a healthy lifestyle. At the event, over 100 kids and over 70 adults agreed to sign a pledge to ride their bikes more often to help the environment.
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Boy Scout Troop 202 built and installed multiple bat boxes to encourage bats to live in several Carmel area recreational locations: Northview Church, Badger Park and Shelbourne Carmel Dads Club athletic facilities, Clay Middle School and Cool Creek Park. Bats are known to consume up to 3000 insects each night, so they are natural insect killers, reducing the need for pesticides in locations where families enjoy the outdoors.
The University High School Green Club involved the entire school in planting 34 drought resistant trees, native to Indiana on school grounds. The private nonprofit school was founded in 2000, and its buildings are surrounded by cornfields, with few mature trees in sight. They selected four 12-foot trees that would start blooming soon and 30 smaller trees that will continue to provide environmental benefits to their school and community long into the future. They paired the plantings with an educational campaign about the importance of trees in helping clean our air.
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2011
Fifth grade students from Woodbrook Elementary School created a project called Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In their school, they will reduce fuel and pollution with a No Idle Zone for cars and buses waiting in to pick up or drop off students, they will reuse shoes via a Soles4Souls collection drive, and they will encourage recycling of cans and bottles in their school cafeteria through an educational campaign which reuses existing trash bins as recycling bins.
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Members of Towne Meadow Elementary’s Junior Girl Scout Troop 1120 distributed 1000 recycled, reusable shopping bags at Marsh Supermarkets and at their school. They provided educational brochures and thank you cards to all participants.
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The Carmel Middle School Green Team used their grant money to educate students about the importance of recycling. They purchased ten Clear Stream recycling bins to be used in CaMS lunchrooms and at performing arts and athletic events. Launched during Earth Week 2011, education will be a large component to their project, with announcements, contests, and posters.
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In March 2011, Boy Scout Troop 202 began the first monofilament fishing line recycling program in Indiana by installing and agreeing to maintain receptacles in the seven Carmel-Clay parks with fishing ponds. Recycling the fishing line is not so much about the volume of product recycled as the impact that even a small amount can have on wildlife tangled in recklessly discarded line.
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The CHS Environmental Club received a Carmel Green Teen Micro-Grant for $936 to help fund long-awaited recycling bins for all three lunchrooms at CHS. The 5000 students and staff also have the opportunity to recycle throughout the school day by using funded recycling bins in the hallways.
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2010
During Earth Week the Brownies at Towne Meadow Elementary School engaged students with an educational campaign demonstrating the amount of energy consumed and waste produced by buying and using disposable water bottles.They also distributed reusable water bottles to students who promised to use and reuse them over and over again.
Members of Carmel Girl Scout troop 1166 chose to do two separate Green Teen projects. They first revamped a butterfly habitat reintroduction area at Carmel’s Carey Grove Park. A well-planned butterfly garden becomes a small, but representative sample of the surrounding habitat and as such provides a safe haven for butterflies and other wildlife to gather, seek shelter, acquire food and water, reproduce and build populations.
This organic teaching garden was created to offer students, staff, and others an opportunity to enjoy the many benefits of a community garden. MOSAICS is an alternative school that provides services to special education students identified as emotionally disabled. The project has been designed as both a therapeutic and an educational lab.
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Members of Carmel Girl Scout troop 1166 then created a butterfly habitat garden at Clay Middle School eco-lab not only to introduce butterflies and bees to the area but also to provide students with a hands-on environment to study plant and animal life cycles.The Clay Middle School Outdoor Ecology Laboratory was created to promote the study of nature, natural history, ecology, and related areas. Used by Science classes and the Ecology Club, it is located on the east end of the Clay Middle School campus.
The Cherry Tree Elementary School Green Club reduced the number of disposable plastic water bottles used and disposed of in Carmel-Clay schools cafeterias by providing their school plus 3 other schools with coolers and washable cups. These will be offered to students at lunchtime so that they may drink free tap water instead of purchasing disposable water bottles.
Boy Scout Troop 180 organized over twenty members of the community to come together to plant 70 trees, indigenous to Indiana, at West Park in Carmel. Trees play key roles in habitats of all animals, including me and you. Trees also reduce carbon dioxide in the air and replace it with oxygen.
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2009
Prairie Trace Elementary Cub Scout Pack 197 promoted reusable shopping bags at their school. The Cub Scouts designed their own shopping bags. To receive a free shopping bag, each Prairie Trace Elementary family signed a pledge indicating that they would use it at least once each week for a year.
The Carmel Middle School student Green Team gave away 1000 Earth Day tree seedlings for planting. These included White oak trees, Red maple trees, and Chokeberry shrubs. The student group provided instructions on how to plant the seedlings as well as tips on keeping the trees healthy.
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On December 5, 2009 34 people representing the boy scouts, church, and other groups worked together at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Carmel to build 14 – 5′x10′ and 3 – 10′x10′ raised planting beds for the St. Christopher’s Crops garden ministry. This community garden provides fresh, wholesome organic produce to area food pantries for distribution to needy families.
Through the efforts of the CHS Green Lights Club, 105 Carmel homes installed CFL bulbs in their outdoor lighting, collectively reducing their carbon footprint by 51 tons. The Green Lights Club was named a Lugar Energy Patriot for their creative work on energy conservation.
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Woodbrook Elementary Webelo Scout Pack 198 seeded the River Trail pedestrian and bike path in the spring of 2010 with native Indiana wildflowers to address a need to restore plant, insect, and animal biodiversity to the areas adjacent to the multi-use pathway. The beautiful flowers now provide food and homes for birds and insects and offer beauty to the many people passing by.
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