Hubbard Elementary teacher wins Georgia DNR grant

A Monroe County teacher has scored a $1,000 grant from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Tiffany Smith, a third-grade teacher at Hubbard Elementary School in Forsyth, was recently named the 2016 Conservation Teacher of the Year.

The award honors a public or private school teacher of third-, fourth- or fifth-grade students who displays “exceptional energy and innovation in teaching life sciences,” according to Georgia DNR.

Smith received the award for her “Georgia Native Bog Gardens” proposal, which will channel water between two school wings into a student-created bog garden. The project will address a condensation problem in these areas of the school property and serve as an outdoor classroom. Parents, local gardeners and the Georgia Farm Bureau will lend a hand with the garden.

“Our Georgia bog project allows our entire school to be involved by learning life science standards, from kindergarteners learning about the water cycle, to third-graders learning about how the different properties of soil affect an environment, to fifth-graders learning about ways to stop erosion,” Smith said in a news release.

This story was originally published December 30, 2016 at 2:19 PM with the headline "Hubbard Elementary teacher wins Georgia DNR grant."