The Fairchild Challenge is an

environmental education Environmental education (EE) refers to organized efforts to teach how natural environments function, and particularly, how human beings can manage behavior and ecosystems to live sustainably. It is a multi-disciplinary field integrating discip ...

outreach program of

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is an botanic garden with extensive collections of rare tropical plants including palms, cycads, flowering trees, and vines. It is located in the city of Coral Gables, Miami-Dade County, just south of Miami, s ...

in Coral Gables,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. The Fairchild Challenge promotes environmental awareness, scholarship and stewardship in students in grades pre-K through 12, and by extension in their families, schools and communities, through a combination of hands-on research, creativity and a variety of competitive projects. The Fairchild Challenge is a

multidisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

environmental science Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geograp ...

competition designed to engage

South Florida South Florida is the southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the other two are Central Florida and North Florida. South Florida is the southernmost part of th ...

students of diverse interests, abilities, talents and backgrounds to explore the natural world. In 2014, the program was recognized by the American Public Gardens Association as a benchmark for exceptional STEM education and for empowering PreK-12th grade students to become the next generation of scientists, researchers, educated voters, policy makers, and environmentally-minded citizens. The Fairchild Challenge is supported by numerous private and public sources, as well as fundraising by the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden’s young professionals’ organization, The Fairchild Palms. The Fairchild Challenge consists of three parallel programs for elementary, middle and high schools. Individual schools submit projects, called Challenges, which are aligned with state academic standards. In addition to the sciences, the projects cover social studies, English, art, music and vocational classes. Past challenge outcomes have included newsletters, opinion and research papers; artwork, postcards, environmental cartoons, posters and T-shirts; performing songs and skits on stage; creating and/or restoring gardens or designated habitats; conducting oral debates; preparing meals; designing solar-powered devices; and undertaking ecological initiatives such as recycling, conducting waste and energy audits, and initiating tree plantings at home, at school and in their communities. Submissions are reviewed by judges, who designate points based on scoring rubrics, and top-scoring schools are recognized with Fairchild Challenge Awards at annual ceremonies at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden at the end of each school year. During the 2013-2014 school year, participants included 125,000 students from 272 K-12 schools.
Fairchild Education Annual Report 2013-14 Since its founding in 2002, The Fairchild Challenge has spread beyond South

by conducting partner site trainings for dozens of museums, zoos, botanical gardens and other institutions throughout the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

as well as other countries. These institutions provide their own customized Fairchild Challenge programs for their area schools based on the original South Florida model.

References

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External links

Events in Coral Gables, Florida Environmental education in the United States Education in Florida