Environment lesson prompts students to plant pollinator plot – School News Network

_{Sixth-grade students at Kraft Meadows Intermediate School are working with teacher Becky Bravata and parent volunteers to plant a native plant pollinator garden before the end of the school year.}

Caledonia — Sixth-grade students recently took on the roles of conservationists, civil engineers, landscape architects, graphic design and marketing specialists, and restoration ecologists. They used their gardening skills to plant a native pollinator garden outside their classroom window.

“Awesome, people,” teacher Becky Bravata called to a garden full of students at Kraft Meadows Intermediate School. “Use your muscles to dig in the dirt! Today we’re going to plant this garden.”

Bravata and her students planted a variety of young trees and shrubs to complete the Scots Garden, a place where bees and butterflies can play and thrive.

Sixth-grade students Kinley Carver and Avery Bloemers used shovels to dig holes in the ground so their classmate Dominic Kohn could plant goldenrod, which aids in pollination and insect activity.

Fresh off a showcase of student projects at the Groundswell Stewardship Initiative in May, where students showed off their garden plans, Bravata and her colleagues wasted no time planting crops to increase biodiversity and provide habitat for wildlife.

“It was great to get the kids outside to do a hands-on project and learn more about the environment and our river basin,” said Bravata, who teamed up with another sixth-grade class to form task forces based on different roles to work on designing the garden.

Kraft Meadows Intermediate School sixth-grade students dig into thick clay soil to remove rocks and plant native pollinators in their new garden

Joyful Wildcrafting environmental consultant and nature educator Lea Sevigny (right) and a parent volunteer plant a small tree in the Scots Garden outside Kraft Meadows High School

Establishing a garden and a legacy

Under the guidance of Bravata and Lea Sevigny, an environmental consultant and nature teacher at Joyful Wildcrafting, the students dug around rocks near the edge of the forest to plant purple prairie clover, butterfly weed, evening primrose and several other native plant species.

The trees and shrubs were donated by the Kent Conservation District, with some coming from Sevigny’s own resources.

“With all these plants, they will have a complete garden,” she said.

Sevigny and parent volunteers used auger bits to make holes in the dense, clay soil, then drilled corresponding holes in large pieces of cardboard that they placed on top of the soil.

“Planting plants in cardboard helps prevent weeds from growing around the plant,” sixth-grader Kellen Mueller said as he placed the plant in a freshly drilled hole.

The students then spread mulch around the plants, on the cardboard, being careful not to smother them. Sixth-grader Sam Crosby followed each small group with a watering can, making sure each new plant was given a generous watering.

As part of their project, the students examined the Thornapple River Basin and incorporated water runoff into their land-use plan.

Becky Bravata, a sixth-grade teacher at Kraft Meadows Intermediate School, center, helps her students arrange cardboard around new plants to display them on the weeds

Kraft Meadows Intermediate School sixth grade students plant a variety of young trees and shrubs in their new native pollinator garden, Scots Garden

Sevigny explained that many plants require full or partial sun, which is a characteristic of the area, and a mix of dry and wet soil.

“It’s a wetland. There’s so much water here,” she said. “The native plants absorb and hold the water where it falls, which helps keep the wetland clean.”

Bravata told her students, “It won’t be a great garden now. It will be in three years when you come back as freshmen and say, ‘I started this.'”

Read more about Caledonia:
• Survivor: Kraft Edition
• 330 mil = $30,000 for breast cancer research