Tulsa, Oklahoma - The Department of the Interior's Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb will join American Indian students at Sequoyah High School at 9:30 A.M. CDT on April 22,2002 to participate in Earth Day activities planned for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) funded school located at Tahlequah, Oklahoma. "I'm looking forward to visiting with the students and seeing what exciting things they are doing to help their environment," Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb said. "Earth Day is a day for all of us to reflect on the things we can do to help our environment."
Activities planned that day include students from the Earth and Environmental Science classes organizing a campus wide beautification project that will have students picking up debris around the campus. Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb will tour the Environmental Science classroom and review the curriculum; he will also participate by planting a tree on campus. The Sequoyah High School Chapter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) has been collecting paper and aluminum cans from the campus as part of a recycling project that includes educating students and teachers about the benefits of recycling to the environment and their community. The AISES students will load the paper and aluminum they have collected onto a truck that will haul it to a recycling center. Students, who participate in the Earth Day activities, will be awarded t-shirts at an assembly that the Assistant Secretary Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb will attend.
Established in 1871, Sequoyah High School celebrated its 130th anniversary on March 4, 2002. The enrollment for grades 9 thru 12 is 230 students representing 42 different tribes from 14 states attend the boarding school. Focusing on academic leadership with an emphasis on American Indian culture and art, Sequoyah High School is one of the best-equipped schools in the country having four computer labs, high speed Internet access for residential students and a state of the art video and audio production facilities. Sequoyah High School is a grant school operated by the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma with the funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Indian Education Programs.
Who: Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb
What: Participating in Earth Day Activities
Where: Sequoyah High School Tahlequah, Oklahoma Hwy. 62 South Ph: 918-456-0631
When: April 22, 2002 9:30 A.M. CDT
