- Physical Plant and Facilities
- Physical Plant and Facilities Homepage
Students Abuzz with Pollinator Garden Success
Besides launching students along the path to future success, Spring Creek Elementary School now plays an important role in another journey.
Recently, the school dedicated its first pollinator garden that includes plants for providing monarch butterflies with food during their long fall migration to Mexico. A schoolwide effort assisted by Penn State master gardeners and other volunteers, the garden joins similar oases for bees, caterpillars and butterflies at the district’s seven other elementary schools, each a satellite garden of the Snetsinger Butterfly Garden in Tom Tudek Memorial Park.
Planting on a sunny late April day culminated months of work and anticipation. Back in February, the three oldest grades took turns planting seeds in milk jugs converted into germination containers. Fourth-grade Pollinator Ambassadors then moved the jugs to the garden site, where they tended to the sprouting plants throughout the rest of winter and early spring.
“They’re planting them in the ground now, the same plants they started from seed,” said master gardener Pam Ford while watching children dig with trowels. “It’s hard to believe.”
Ford has helped start other district elementary pollinator gardens, but Spring Creek’s Pollinator Project was special for her.
Spring Creek replaced former sister schools Lemont and Houserville, two communities with which the Ford family has strong ties. Doug Ford, Pam’s husband and also a master gardener involved with building the Spring Creek garden, went to Lemont, as did his father. The Fords’ grandson attended Houserville, and now goes to Spring Creek with his younger sister.
“And my daughter, Lindsay Keegan, is a master gardener intern, so she will be carrying the garden on,” Pam Ford said. “It’s very personal.”
Along with other master gardeners, the Fords collaborated in February with fifth-grade teacher Linda Andrews and STEM teacher David Gardner to sow seeds in the Spring Creek gym. Third, fourth and fifth-graders first listened to Pam Ford explain, via Zoom, how moisture entering the jugs and cold would prompt dormant seeds in the soil to germinate. They heard how their seeds — New England aster, wild bergamot, hairy mountain mint and lanced-leaved coreopsis — are favorites of bumble bees, carpenter bees, monarch butterflies and other pollinators critical for propagating plants.
Grouped by grades, students then filed into the gym to half-fill cut jugs with potting soil prepared by Doug Ford, gently plant seeds and then tape the containers shut — but not before a combination pep talk and orientation from Andrews.
“From now, this isn’t a jug,” Andrews said, holding aloft an example. “It’s a greenhouse. And you have to treat the greenhouse respectfully, because it’s going to have precious things for our school.”
After the greenhouses had produced a bountiful crop, students like second-graders Sydney Hulburt and Abby Carroll enjoyed working in pairs with the Fords, Gardner, Keegan and parent volunteers to plant.
“I feel good about it because it’s going to be a special place for bees to visit,” Hulburt said.
“I like the pollinator garden because I like gardens,” Carroll said.
When not kneeling in soil, students could visit a nearby station to learn about bees and their impact from Heather Frank, a pollinator educator with the Arboretum at Penn State. Her materials included a display box with pinned bee and fly specimens.
Three days later, all of the hard work — including decorative rocks painted by K-2 classes to line the garden paths — was on full display during the Pollination Festival for the community. More than 150 people attended, checking out environmental education displays and taking home free plants, among other activities. The Fords led a performance of Pollinators: The Musical, a Muppet-like puppet show that uses humorous takes on famous musical numbers to teach about pollinators.
Another creative expression will celebrate the project permanently. This month, if all goes according to Gardner’s plan, a six-by-10 foot mural enlarging Pam Ford’s painting of a garden with butterflies will hang in a stairwell overlooking the pollinator garden. Each student and staff member will paint a square for the mural, in whatever artistic style they prefer.
“The neat part is the students don’t really know the end result, but what we stress is the individual has to focus on their part so that it fits into the larger picture,” Gardner said.
He and the Fords are conveying the same message about building pollinator gardens and benefiting the environment. Pam Ford turns to a puzzle metaphor.
“Every piece is as important as the other piece,” she said. “We all have to create habitat for pollinators to make a difference. When we work together, we can provide all the resources they need.”
But somebody had to direct the show, and Andrews appreciates the Fords’ investment in the garden.
“They’ve done an amazing job with this project and so much more,” she said. “We will forever be grateful for their leadership, time, and dedication to the children of Spring Creek Elementary. (Principal) Paul (Brigman) and David will be able to work with them for many years on future projects, with Spring Creek Elementary being an exemplary school in the field of environmental awareness and respect.”
In the end, second-graders Anthony Pietraccini and Owen Cawthern were proud to have contributed.
“Because it’s better for the bees,” Pietraccini said. “It’s better for the world.”
“I like that it’s trying to make the school better,” Cawthern said. “And you can come back and say, ‘I did this. I accomplished this.’ ”
By Chris Rosenblum
Photos by Nabil K. Mark
Published May 5, 2023