EDUCATION DMV Youth Explore the Environment with Hands-On Learning

By Kayla Benjamin and Robert R. Roberts WI Climate & Environment Reporter and WI Photographer

Even as the school year winds down, DMV kids and teens have had no shortage of new opportunities for learning this month. On June 1, more than 200 D.C. high schoolers joined the Department of Parks and Recreation for a Youth Environmental Summit held at Congress Heights urban garden The Well at Oxon Run. Next, students from across D.C., Virginia, Maryland and Ohio raced around a track in RFK Stadium on June 3—in electric vehicles they built themselves. The Washington DC Electric Vehicle Grand Prix challenged high school teams to craft lightweight, single-person cars and complete as many laps as possible in a one-hour timeframe, using only the vehicle’s batteries. This year, first place went to Stuarts Draft High School, from Vir- ginia. D.C.’s Wheaton and Jackson Reed high schools took home second and third place, respectively.

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Littler learners have had opportunities to use the outdoors as a classroom this month, too. The youngest attendee at Gardening and Beats’ beekeeping workshop on June 10 was 2-and-ahalf year-old Ava. Of the “Beez in the Trap” event, Ava had this to say: “Bzz! Bzz! Bzz!”

The workshop took place at, and was co-hosted by, the newly-founded urban farm Chateaux Cocoa, in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Among the many veggies, 17 kids aged 2 to 13 made beeswax candles, planted wildflowers in tiny pots and sampled honey straight from the beehive frame. Most of all, they put on kid-sized beekeeping suits to peek inside the hive with farm founder Darrelynne Strother.

“I guess the surprise was the real little ones really being into it—I thought they were all going to be scared,” said Kimani Anku, founder of Gardening and Beats, a gardening coach service. WI kids to love bees and appreciate bees,” Anku said. (Robert R. Roberts/The Washington Informer)

4The initial 10 slots for kids’ beekeeping workshop quickly sold out—Anku said he added five extra spots, and then a donation allowed him to add two more. “The parents have said to me, ‘the kids are running around all the time with the bee suits on,’” he said a week after the event. (Robert R. Roberts/ The Washington Informer)

It’s not too late to go to college this fall! The DC Tuition Assistance Grant (DCTAG) will provide up to $10,000 a year to help cover tuition at participating colleges and universities.

To be eligible for DCTAG, you must be 26 or younger, a DC resident with a high school diploma or GED, and meet a few other requirements.

Click on dconeapp.dc.gov few documents, then submit! Apply by August 18, 2023.