Grant to Help EWU Preserve Natural Land on Campus

*This story has been updated from its original version with the exact amount of funding awarded to EWU for this project.

CHENEY, Washington – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has selected Eastern Washington University to receive funding under the EPA’s Environmental Education Grants Program (EPA-EE). The funding will help efforts to restore natural habitat around campus.

Overall, the EPA is distributing $3.3 million to support projects nationwide, with Eastern set to receive $100,000 for environmental education activities and programs.

The EWU grant supports the Palouse Prairie Region Restoration Project, which actively involves the regional community in the restoration of a native ecosystem, raising public awareness while promoting environmental literacy and conservation stewardship.

EWU’s Biology and Education departments, along with the EWU Office of Sustainability, will collaborate on the project. According to EPA-EE grant Project Directors Justin Bastow, Kathryn Baldwin (EWU faculty) and the EPA-EE grant team, “We are very excited to collaborate regionally on the Palouse Prairie Restoration Project. We’re looking forward to engaging community members, of all ages, in prairie restoration and stewardship.”

Community participants will plant and cultivate native plants at the restoration site and communicate with the greater community about the restoration process and project results through community events and by creating interpretive signs onsite.

Since 1992, the EPA has distributed more than $75 million in EE grant funding supporting more than 3,700 grant projects. The program traditionally provides financial support for projects that design, demonstrate or disseminate environmental education practices, methods or techniques.