When Maggie Palm returned to her job as a sixth grade teacher at Illahee Middle School after spring break, colleagues passing her in the hall offered their congratulations.

Palm was mystified until she learned the reason for the goodwill: she is a winner of the 2006 Earth Heroes at Schools, awarded by the King County Executive's office.

Palm will receive the award at a ceremony on May 4th from King County Executive Ron Sims, held at 4:30 p.m. at the Community Center at Mercer View at 8236 SE 24th Street on Mercer Island.

Palm, a lifelong recycling enthusiast, strives to teach her own children and those in her classrooms the 4 Rs: recycling, reducing, reusing and rethinking.

Now in her fifth year at Illahee, when she arrived she discovered that despite a rudimentary recycling program in place, due to bureaucratic mix-ups within the custodial department, everything was ending up in the dumpster.

"We thought we were recycling, but it proved too hard to keep things sorted, and everything, including the recyclable stuff, went into the trash," said Palm.

Palm and her then-sixth grade class decided to create a new program and figure out how they could be a support to the custodial staff. The first thing they did was to dust off the recycling bins they found languishing in a storage basement.

Palm spearheaded an assertive recycling campaign, designing lessons on over consumption, biodiversity, and the realities of how much in our society goes to waste. A stickler on what goes in which bins and why, Palm encouraged her students to become recycling champions.

Next teacher and students turned their attention to a major anti-recycling culprit, the school's cafeteria. They quickly turned it into a total green zone.

Palm was also working towards her national certification, which requires candidates to complete a community outreach program.

She established a "Recycling Week" at Illahee, with daily PA announcements, lunchtime skits and events, and had her students go to other classrooms to teach recycling lessons to their schoolmates.

With the help of Ed Novak of the FWPS, Robert vanOrsow of the city of Federal Way and Sam Wilder, a recycling subcontractor for the city, Palm wrote and received a grant that enabled her to take her students and their recycling program on the road to elementary schools within the district, giving presentations to the younger students on the importance of recycling.

"Maggie's efforts go above and beyond, she's saved the district money, as more is recycled now than thrown away," said Wilder.

Palm said proudly that Illahee has to date saved $500 this school year on their waste bill, as the school pays for each time their dumpsters are emptied; now with the increased recycling, that happens less often.

Palm is one of 19 teachers, students and school volunteers who are being recognized for their green efforts.

"She's done so much work, we're so happy for her," said Donna Miscolta, project manager at the King County Solid Waste Division.

Started by Sims's office in 2001, the Earth Heroes at Schools awards honors "individuals as well as innovative school-based programs that are working hard to maintain the rich integrity of the region...and creating models for similar projects in other schools, classrooms and communities," said Sims.

Palm said that the award came as a pleasant surprise, and hopes it will draw even more attention to recycling in the schools. Her next project, for which she is awaiting a green light from the district, involves having her students crush cans and take them to a recycling center to get cash. The cash will be used for a "Christmas for Kids" program run by the PE department at Illahee that provides low-income students with gifts and food during the holidays.