Pollinator Garden

During student teaching we were tasked with completing another project: Creating a DIY project that would help with teacher development. The parameters were a bit looser, which left a lot of room for creativity.

My first step was to discuss this with my cooperating teacher. Coincidentally, around this time we were contacted by one of the restoration specialists at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. She told us of an opportunity to work with the Xerces Society to apply for a grant for a pollinator plot on school grounds. 

Seeing as this would be a fantastic project for this DIY project, my cooperating teacher and I immediately set to work and wrote the grant together. Part of writing this grant was to provide information about the ground where the pollinator plot would go. We teamed up with the grounds crew at Big Spring to work through this portion of writing the grant. We discussed logistics and if we would be able to plow a 50'x60' plot, what the soil type is (we used Web Soil Survey for this), and what our individual roles would be. Part of this grant required us to choose a "site type" from the options the Xerces Society provided that best matched the plot that we have, another decision that we made as a group. For each specific site type, there was certain plants that would work best there, so it was important that we were accurate about the site type we chose that that the plants in the pollinator garden would grow well.

After applying for the grant, we then waited to see if we got it. After a month of not knowing, we finally got an email letting us know that we got it! My CT and I then got to work on developing a plan for what needed to be done to prepare the plot, ways we would mitigate weeds, who would be there to help, what the structure of the day would look like, contacting administration to make sure that we could go through with this, and finally planning out where the plants would go. We teamed up with the Environmental Club for this, as well, so we had some help in planning out the logistics. 

Unfortunately, the plants will not arrive until the end of May, meaning my student teaching experience will be done when the actually planting happens (although I will still be going back to help plant on the day that the plants arrive). To compensate, I worked hard on making a detailed plan of the day of planting that included who would be there, what materials we needed, a timeline of the day, and what plants were getting planted in what sections of the plot.

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When we first started this project, I didn't think it would be nearly as involved as it was. There was so many other people that we had to coordinate with and a lot of moving parts to planning out the logistics. It really showed me how much work goes into a community project like this. I feel like I gained some great skills in creating a plan and managing said plan, working with local environmental groups, and collaborating with different groups within the school.