School Outreach Program

About the Program

Category: Children and Youth (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

In all duties and obligations, Maricopa County strives to work alongside its citizens to ensure a safe and healthy environment. The permit issued by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality requires Maricopa County to conduct a minimum amount of outreach activities to achieve compliance. Maricopa County outreach activities geared towards school aged children was seen as an area to improve to go from good to great. In FY2014, Maricopa County developed the School Outreach Program, which robustly incorporates a mascot, Sam the Salamander, slogan, and multiple grade educational lessons to ramp up school age stormwater education that now outperforms permit requirements of conducting minimal classroom training. The School Outreach Program’s goal is to increase demand for stormwater school training; thereby, increasing numbers of students trained. Alignment with the Arizona Science State Standard was achieved, which seamlessly meshes stormwater lessons with grade specific school curriculums. This seamless approach to outreach and education has uniquely created an atmosphere of learning for kindergarten through eighth grade students. Since FY2014, demand for the School Outreach Program continues to increase. School Outreach Program success is measured by the rise in teacher class requests and the surge of school age children trained.