ING Unsung Heroes® Previous Award Winners

The winning program, “Rock the Refuge: Connecting Children with Nature”, was developed by Frick, Cohen, Greene, Shaw, and Sullivan for students at K.W. Barrett Elementary School. The purpose of the program is to encourage students to understand and appreciate the importance of conserving the great outdoors. Through the program, students will use local wildlife refuges, the park, and the school yard to engage scientific inquiry focused on conservation.

Barth developed the idea for the “Fitness Media Center” after she read a book on the new science of exercise and the brain. Granite Falls Middle School is moving into a new building and will have more room for physical education classes than at their current location which will allow for changes in the way the classes are run. Instead of focusing on different sports, Barth would incorporate more fitness into their program by adding more daily classes and lifelong fitness activities. As a result of the move, the school will now have a weight room, large gym, and a small auxiliary gym.

Gunderson’s innovative program, “Funderson”, which was named after the founder, is an extracurricular recreational program for students at Roosevelt Elementary School. The main goal of the program lies in its name: for students to have “fun” through active physical play. For the program, students will be inspired to run, jump, play, laugh, and shout together outdoors and in the gym through the use of running clubs, basketball and flag football games, obstacle courses, capture-the-flag, and other made-up games.