School funding

Students from three Washoe County high schools earned a total of $22,000 to make green improvements at their schools after competing in last week’s GREENevada High School Sustainability Competition.

GREENevada, a coalition of local environmental education nonprofits, won $50,000 from the Pepsi Refresh Project this past December, and that money was used to host this competition. It featured nine area high schools and their proposals for how to make their schools more sustainable. The three winning schools and their projects:

First prize: $12,000 to Reed High School to green up their bathrooms by replacing toilets, installing motion sensitive lighting and faucets and educating students about paper towel use.

Second prize: $7,000 to Rainshadow Charter High School to grow a food forest, create an aquaculture system, open a school pizzeria with locally-grown food, start a bring-your-own-mug program, and update the school’s energy system.

Third prize: Hug High School to create a recycling program and eradicate Styrofoam for the cafeteria.