Monumental Project Takes Shape

Collaboration is a wonderful thing.

Having secured a grant from the National Wildlife Federation, Nate Rosenberg, Sylvia Brown, and I attended training on creating an outdoor classroom/wildlife habitat. Mr. Rosenberg took the lead in coordinating the project. His classes chose the site in front of the school. It has several favorable attributes. It is located opposite the purple martin houses, it is close to a water source, it is in highly visible site that becomes muddy in wet weather.

Our Industrial Technologies classes under the supervision of Ronnie Scott built 10 3-person benches.

Preparing the site was a semester long project. Several classes participated: Ms. Brown's and Mr. Brooks's Environmental Science classes, Mr. Rosenbergs's 6th grade Science classes, my Taste of Science and Native Plants and Animals classes (a proto-GreenTech project).

The benches augment the seating capacity for students awaiting parent pick up as well.

Classes remove the bermuda grass, leaving as much of the topsoil as possible. Newspapers and commercial weed barrier cloth came next. Students carted in dozens of wheelbarrow loads of a mix that is heavy in decomposed granite. This adds a lot of minerals to the worn out, clay rich soil, as well as, provides a stable medium for mounding.

Rosenberg's design incorporates a curved berm that mimics the curve of the adjacent sidewalk.

Medina Garden Nursery donated over $200 worth of plants. The salvia greggi, lantana, prairie verbena, and some of the grasses were grown in our campus greenhouse. Parent donations and the remaining grant funds paid for the rest of the plants which we purchased from nearby Emerald Garden Nursery at a super generous discount. AISD helped out with soil and mulch. We also bought a load of GeoGrower's excellent berm mix.

Students worked throughout the day with the goal of getting all the plants in the ground before the 3:30 bell.

Temperatures soared. By the end of school we cracked the century mark.

We got most of the plants in, mulched around their bases and watered them thoroughly.

Click to view photos of the planting frenzy.