The second annual KREAtive Classroom Grant was recently awarded by Kennebec Retired Educators Association to Julia Hanauer-Milne who teaches social studies, science and language arts in Grades 3 through 5 in Belgrade Central, Williams Elementary and James H. Bean schools in Regional School Unit 18.

She teaches an interdisciplinary unit “Kennebec to the Sea” in which students learn about transformations of the river from a “wild, whitewater river to an industrial one, and from fresh water to salt water since the tides reach all the way to Augusta,” said Hanauer-Milne in a news release from the association.

Students will also research how people transformed the river from the times of Native Americans through the height of its industrial uses (and their impacts) to its cleanup, to the removal of two key dams, and what that has meant for sea-run fish.

“It has been determined the annual alewife run in Benton has increased from very few to about three million fish since the Edwards and Fort Halifax dams were removed. My students will study a sea-run fish, write about it, and create a visual; and I hope to have their work included in the World Fish Migration Day in Bangor in May.

“The $100 award will enable me to help pay for a field trip to take my students to the alewife run in Benton because those fish travel up the Kennebec before turning into the Sebasticook River in Winslow,” she said in the news release.

KREA is comprised of more than 130 retired school personnel in 31 towns in Kennebec County and awards a $100 grant annually to an educator for classroom use.

“Even though we are not active in the classroom, for many retirees that is where our hearts remain long after we leave teaching,” said Linda Ellis of Clinton, retired educator from Winslow Elementary School, in the release.

“We just want to give back to our schools in as many ways as possible,” George Davis of Oakland, chairperson of the KREAtive Grant Committee, said in the release.

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