Thursday April 17, 2008
This school year saw a new partnership begin, as Angela Page’s Advanced Placement Environmental Science class, or A.P.E.S as they prefer to be called, applied their classroom learning to real world issues.
Beargrass Creek at Irish Hill is an area maintained by the Natural Areas Region of Metro Parks. After receiving funding from MSD for restoration work along the pathway, Tonya Swan, Natural Areas Program Supervisor (pictured with Mayor Jerry Abramson) and Angela Page put together a partnership that involved students in the monitoring, planning and restoration process at the entrance of the Irish Hill Pathway on the corner of Grinstead Avenue and Lexington Road. The purpose of this project was to have students go through the very real process of analyzing a site, determining what needed to be done to improve it and doing the work and create a public education piece.
Phyllis Croce of MSD and Natural Areas program staff worked together to prepare the students for their work in the field by teaching several classes on watershed issues, plant identification, and soil testing.
The students put this knowledge to use in the field when they spent the day at Beargrass Creek conducting soil and water tests, exploring and mapping the area, identifying sources of pollution, and identifying native and invasive plants that are present on the restoration site.
With this data, they set about developing an improvement plan that included a list of invasive plants and trees to be removed, identifying methods for removal, designing the restoration site and providing a list of native plants that would survive and thrive under the soil, shade and land conditions they identified. This was presented to Bennett Knox, Natural Areas administrator, and David Fothergill, Olmsted landscape manager.
Students returned to the site and removed the identified invasive plants, spread fresh soil and augmented it with compost material to prepare it for the plantings. The students then devoted a Saturday morning outside of class to install all of the plantings. More than 180 plants were planted.
Students were responsible for creating the language and layout for permanent signage to be installed to inform the public about the species of plants and how the use of native plants improves local eco-systems.
Abramson, Swan, and other Metro Parks officials were joined April 16 at the entrance to the Irish Hill Pathway by students from the class to unveil a placard identifying their plantings.