GSHS’s Amanda Talantis earns “Best of Green Schools” Award

GSHS’s Amanda Talantis earns “Best of Green Schools” Award

Gulf Shores High School educator Amanda Talantis has been named a Best of Green Schools Award recipient for the K-12 Educator category by the Center for Green Schools.
A highly respected teacher for 17 years, Talantis teaches in the Sustainability and Hospitality and Tourism Academies at GSHS.
In her courses, she focuses on ecotourism and sustainability to help create a more sustainable and green school system, community, and region. Talantis has been instrumental in transforming Gulf Shores City Schools into a district that prioritizes all tenets of sustainability and she lives by the belief in helping develop responsible young citizens who will promote sustainability for future generations.
Talantis also leads the “Small Town, Big Garden” Project, and the vegetables her students grow are prepped and served in a variety of recipes in the culinary kitchen and in the district’s cafeterias. The director of the school’s extensive Earth Day program, she also teaches yoga to students and faculty. Her many innovative programs include a farm-to-table community event; a greenhouse with hundreds of hydroponic plants; recycling initiative; raised beds and gardens; fresh student lunches, salad bars, snacks, and smoothies from the student-grown gardens; the Dolphin Walk program for fitness; yoga classes; sand dune restoration at Gulf State Park; and standing desks for interested teachers.
“Amanda and her students often work after school and on weekends to maintain projects and plan for events, collaborating with other departments to offer sustainability-related projects within our school system,’’ said Jessica Sampley, Academies and CTE Director at GSCS.
“She connects with community partners, including local farms and nonprofits, to provide additional opportunities for students to learn how to live sustainably. She also collaborates with teachers across the school district to vertically align sustainability projects and initiatives.’’