WESTON in the News

February 2008

WESTON Makes a Difference at Austin, TX, Elementary School

During a corporate meeting held in Austin, Texas, WESTON employees helped Ortega Elementary School students build an Outdoor Science Classroom on school grounds. This activity had two objectives: to benefit the community and to teach sustainability principles to the next generation of environmental stewards.

Ortega students from pre-K through 5th grade were involved in building the outdoor classroom. Approximately 100 meeting attendees and Austin office personnel worked side-by-side with the children. WESTON moved 15 cubic yards of soil and a ton and a half of stone in less than 4 hours! Ten teams built, installed, or planted the following items:

• Eight new beds for butterfly, hummingbird, vegetable, and herb gardens
• A composter and a rain barrel
• A weather station with an indoor monitoring device that allows students to review climate data
• Three outdoor work tables to make outdoor teaching easier
• Two bird baths
• GreenGrid^® demonstration area
• Stepping stones made from dyed concrete and glass beads
• Bird houses, bird feeders, and butterfly houses
• Special bird house with infrared camera connected to an indoor monitor for bird watching

This event won’t be our last interaction with Ortega Elementary. Next month employees from WESTON’s Austin office will bring a professional landscaper to the school to install a pond and wetland habitat, and add more plants to the raised beds. Plans also include painting a mural and leading short lessons on a variety of environmental topics, such as the geology of central Texas, the impact of using disposable plastic shopping bags, water conservation and water quality protection, and the local food movement.

Pat McCann, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, believes the outdoor classroom will pay untold dividends: “We hope that by providing the teachers and students at Ortega with these tools to learn more about the environment, we’re helping to open their eyes to ways that they can live and work in a sustainable manner, protecting and restoring the environment for their own kids in the decades to come.”