10-1SG Down to the Roots
Grant Round:
2010 February
Grant Program:
Small Grants
Grant Type:
Other Grants
Grant amount requested:
2,500.00
Grant amount awarded:
$1,250.00
Attachments
Please provide a brief description of the project for which you seek funding.
Last year, I worked for an ecological landscaper named Bridghe McCracken over the summer and I started getting a taste of the fascinating world of ecological restoration. The experiences I had working for Bridghe inspired me to look deeper into the science behind ecological restoration, and the ecological problems that we face today. I have been involved with Project Sprout – the student run organic vegetable garden on campus that a group of us started – for almost three years now, so I already knew how to cultivate plants organically and a little bit about how they worked in terms of what plants need to survive. I then started to learn about Project Native and their whole grassroots operation, and the combination of these different experiences inspired the current project that a bunch of us have started. In the fall of 2009, I met with Bridghe McCracken and Raina Weber about the idea of restoring the district’s landscapes, and with their advice, I started analyzing the school’s landscapes. I saw the acres and acres of unused space on campus that the school spent all this time mowing. Mowing such vast expanses without purpose has no value for wildlife, emits pollutants into the atmosphere, costs money, creates nutrient runoff into the surrounding ecosystems, and takes management time that could be spent elsewhere. Ecologically restoring these landscapes is a net gain in every way. Though I knew I wanted to get a lot of people involved in this project, I never expected the buy-in I received from the start. We decided on a 16,000 square foot native wildflower meadow at the middle school, a 2,000 square foot rain garden off of the elementary school roof with buffer of shrubs, a fruit orchard with 18 apple trees and 6 pear trees that the middle school students will maintain and that will supplement the middle school cafeteria with fresh fruit, and a drainage ditch planted with cattails, willow, and spicebush. The cattail will be harvested for eating as will the elderberries and the spicebush in the rain garden. In addition, we are going to remove invasive species from an area that we wish to let success into a forest, and we will replace the invasives with trees and shrubs. We also spent the winter learning from different community members on topics ranging from pruning fruit trees to the fascinating world of mushrooms. We were trying to develop whatever connection we could to our environment and learn as much about the natural world as possible. This way, when we start our projects next week, we will be able to draw connections between what we are doing physically, and how our actions affect the greater ecology and health of the area. Our project will hopefully change lives with its physical beauty as well. Our plantings will be filled with beautiful native shrubs and wildflowers as well as some uncommon and rare species. These expanses of land will hopefully serve to teach our school community and all passersby about the environmental and aesthetic value of ecological restoration and efficient land use. Also, we hope to brighten up everyone’s day with these colorful and peaceful natural areas amidst all these paved surfaces. Indirect benefits for the community include: increased groundwater recharge that will supply more purified water to the wells that all three schools drink out of, drier sidewalks, providing pollinator habitat that will help raise the number of pollinators at the school’s organic vegetable garden while pollinators decline in numbers nationwide, and saving the school money, time, and future problems by removing biologically ineffective lawn area. We are starting to question our education systems all over the country, and the more we can prove to our schools that alternative ways of educating are effective, the more equipped the next generation will be to solve the problems they face. Countless students spend four years struggling through high school without the freedom or motivation to explore what the world has to offer and to find what interests them. Here is the beginning of that opportunity. We will open up students’ eyes to the fascinating world of nature, and hope that they might start making connections between the way they live, and the earth that sustains them.
Project Summary
The group received a grant in 2010 to ecologically restore the unused mowed lawn on the Berkshire Hills Regional School District’s campus. We changed management habits so that six acres of lawn will only be brush-hogged once a year; we are removing invasive species and replanting those areas with shrubs and trees in upcoming years, and this year we are creating a 16,000 square foot wildflower meadow, a fruit orchard with 18 apple trees and 6 pear trees that will supplement the middle school’s cafeteria, a 2,000 square foot rain garden, and a cattail drainage ditch.
Primary Issue Area:
Land & Water
Please break-down/categorize the program expenses:
| Proposed Item | Estimated $ Amount | Would grant funds be used for this item? | Type Of Expense |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rain garden plants | $1,600.00 | Yes | Materials |
| Wildflower meadow seeds | $900.00 | Materials | |
| Fruit trees/orchard materials | $1,000.00 | Materials | |
| Shrubs on rain garden buffer | $900.00 | Materials | |
| Tools/random supplies (books, black plastic, straw, etc) | $2,000.00 | Materials |
Whom does your group need to make this project happen?
Please explain how your group will engage members from your community in this project.
About 25 out of the thirty students I tried to recruit were interested. Fifteen of those thirty decided to become the leaders of the project and are going to carry this project into the future as I am graduating this year. We met two to three times a week all winter and came up with our plans. One of the most intriguing aspects of the project is the group that has taken off with it. Most of these students have never been involved in any social or environmental activism, nor have they spent much time falling in love with the wonders of nature. Through Project Sprout, I have found that high school students seem to be most empowered when working in a group towards some goal that they can witness and quantify. And the physical component of getting ones hands dirty is usually a key component, because the very act of playing in the dirt grounds us and connects us to energy far greater than our own. Project Sprout turns problem dwellers into problem solvers, and I am hoping this project has the same affect. Students are able to feel and see the change they create, and the power of a large group shines a great light on the future of humanity. I have tried my best to this point to make these students the leaders and owners of this project. I am simply a facilitator passing down everything I know and gaining immensely from the learning experiences these students are supplying me with. This spring and summer, we will be working during school, after school, and on Sundays. Some of the students involved are working with us instead of taking gym class. But the majority of the students involved are doing this without receiving credit of any kind either during their study halls, after school, or on the weekends. It is completely student run besides the help we receive from experts in the community and our account manager.
If your group receives a NEGEF Grow grant, how do you plan to pay for remaining expenses?
| $ Amount | Source |
|---|---|
| $2,500.00 | NEGEF grant |
| $3,900.00 | Another grant |
Please list these materials or services
| Item |
|---|
| Students volunteers for all work |
Please describe what changes will occur in your community and its environment when your group's project is successful.
If this project is successful, I am projecting major changes in the school district environment. The empowered students who come from very different backgrounds will hopefully spread their knowledge and excitement for the environment to their friends and families, thus changing their attitudes about the importance of caring for our ecosystems. Group dynamics always play a major role in any project, and for these students, learning to work through these group problems is a very important life skill to learn. Many of these students are stuck on a treadmill that runs like this: they sit in a dark building all day every day listening to teachers who teach them material they rarely want to learn, then they do homework at home and maybe play a sport which is part of their structured lives, and then they party hard on the weekends because they are so stressed out from the week’s uninteresting workload. That’s a big generalization, but I see varying degrees of it all the time in kids my age. Getting outside changes one’s perspective and turns a seemingly dull world into one filled with natural beauty that invigorates the senses and powers us with energy. I am confident that breaking up the school day with some physical work in the outdoors will improve students’ ability to listen and focus on schoolwork when in school. And stress levels should also naturally come down. Richard Louv wrote a book called Last Child in the Woods that talks about our diminishing relationship with the environment and the over-structured lives today’s youth lead. In this project, we are essentially structuring unstructured time for these students to take control of their own goals in a free setting, so that for once in their lives they are not expected to perform in a certain way. This type of project also diminishes the natural hierarchy that is created on a sports team or any other activity that values individual talent. Everyone involved in this project is basically on the same level because nobody is there to judge how talented you are with a shovel. All efforts are valued because they lead to a greater positive change in the landscape.
Please list how many people in your community your group expects to actively engage in this project.
100
What relevant skills does the group need (but does not currently have access to) to help move the initiative forward?
We could all be better at empowering others to work by our sides to create the change they want to see. Also, we are constantly learning about the different techniques used in landscaping, and when we become more efficient with our work, our projects will be that much more effective and beautiful to the eye, and we will be able to get more done.
What relevant skills do current members of the group have to help move the initiative forward?
Group members have gained knowledge from people in the community, and from resources such as books and the internet.