Bridgewater Students Win President's Environmental Youth Award

BRIDGEWATER, NJ — Five students from Bridgewater-Raritan High School will be receiving the President's Environmental Youth Award which is offered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in partnership with the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

"When I learned the Bridgewater-Raritan High School Green Infrastructure Club had been selected to receive the Presidential Environmental Youth Award I was elated," said Bridgewater-Raritan High School Principal Charles Ezell. "The young people who comprise the Green Infrastructure Club are tremendous stewards of and advocates for a sustainable environment. For people so young to be thoughtful about the posterity of their community is remarkable, which is exactly how I would describe them."

The President's Environmental Youth Award recognizes outstanding environmental projects by K-12 youth. BRHS students earning the award include Sujay Edavalapati, Pravar Jain, Amogh Jupalli, Aneesh Nagalkar and Ritika Thomas. Their supervisors are Elizabeth DeMeyer and Sharon Blanke.

The students, who were part of a Green Infrastructure Club, discovered a stormwater runoff problem on school property. To remedy this, the students recruited other students in elementary, middle and high school to create a rain garden to fix the flooding problem.

In addition to protecting pollutants from entering the nearby Raritan River, the rain garden also provides an outdoor science laboratory for students in the school district.

In 2019, the rain garden treated 3,950 gallons of rainwater. The students are in the process of planting 600 bulbs to keep the rain garden going in 2020.

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