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By JOYANNA LOVE | Managing Editor

A group of teachers at Clanton Intermediate School have helped increase students access to nonfiction books by securing a Central Alabama Electric Cooperative Bright Ideas Grant.

The school received $500 for books written for children on the scientific topics of alternative energy sources, combatting pollution and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster as well as books about animals, such as bees and monarch butterflies, as bioindicator species of how the environment is doing.

“I want to thank Central Alabama Electric Cooperative for their generous support of supporting education,” Aimee Dobbs, library media specialist at the school, said.

In preparation for writing the grant, she had sent an email to teachers at the school asking if any of the classes could use books on climate change. Sixth grade teachers said climate change was something required to be covered in the state standards for their grade.

“Sixth grade students will analyze evidence to explain how changes in human population consumption of natural resources and other human activities affect Earth’s systems,” Dobbs said in the grant application. “More specifically, students will identify a specific environmental issue and then engineer a solution to the issue.”

The books are made to last for five to 10 years, meaning multiple classes will get to benefit from the grant.

Dobbs said she is excited to support what students are learning in the classroom through the grant.