Community Service

Over the years I have worked very hard to match experiential learning opportunities that stress green principles with the curriculum standards in the public schools here in Massachusetts.  Around 1997 I joined a group that a local educator was trying to mobilize to create outdoor classrooms throughout the town of Shrewsbury.  She had successfully worked with local boy scouts to construct a guided walking tour through property behind the Floral Street School.  While the group didn’t gel, I continued to be an enthusiastic supporter of outdoor classrooms, especially as the mother of a young “energetic” boy.

Most of my work has been done in the elementary school and middle school that my son has attended, but always to the benefit of the entire student population.  Most of my projects cannot be shown in photographs, but include the following:

• Three years as the sole organizer of an Earth Day Event. I found volunteer speakers from the community to provide hands-on, guided tours, and experiments that promoted the environment within the context of the subject being studied in science for grades 1-5. This included bee keepers, bird experts, and soils experts.
• Brought in the President of the Massachusetts Butterfly Club to show third graders unusual caterpillars and to discuss the migration of monarch butterflies.
• Kite and weather demonstration and workshop from Blue Hill Observatory for weather monitoring.
• I lead several soil classification workshops.
• Worked for six weeks with fifth graders to research local birds, create a school field guide and plant a bird friendly garden.
• Worked for two springs with kindergarten students to plant a “salad” garden, take care of it, explore insects, harvest, and eat their food. Wrote and received a $500 grant.
• Fund raising, planning and design of an outdoor classroom space.
• Organized walking field trip with expert volunteers to a local certified vernal pond to explore vernal creatures. Connected teachers to information made available by Mass Wildlife.
• Participated in Biodiversity Days
• Fund raising for projects through plant sales.
• Created a Tree Identification flowchart that third grade students used to identify 12 trees that I labeled throughout the schoolyard. Brought in local nursery owner to discuss trees.
• Career Day speaker.
• Talk with fifth grade students about the Importance of Creating Wildlife Corridors in Suburban neighborhoods.  Using information from the National Back Yard Habitat Program, five groups of students used materials to build an animal friendly yard with some undeveloped space. I then had the student groups become “neighbors” who had to negotiate how they would connect their wild spaces to create a corridor.
• Worked with teachers to organize pond construction at the Oak Middle School over the course of 18 months.  In Phase One, Chris King and I worked with parent and teacher volunteers and local scouts to dig the pond. (see Powerpoint Demonstration)  In Phase Two, I worked with an Eagle Scout candidate to complete the project, installing all plantings and decoration.  The scout built benches that convert to desks and raised money for a science storage cabinet to finish the space as a true Outdoor Classroom. The students who raised the seed money dedicated the garden to a retired teacher, the Francie Richie Commemorative Asian Garden.
• Designed donor entrance walkway; helped raise $85,000 and build new
  playground in a two-year project for Dean Park in Shrewsbury, MA
• Helped the Worcester Center for Crafts win a $5000 grant from the Wheeler
  Trust in 1996. My design and photo images won this award to help beautify
  Worcester Public Spaces
• Continued work with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts with presentations and
  planning for outdoor beautification service projects.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss the possibility of receiving my help with your project, or to invite me to make a presentation about how landscaping can help the environment. My presentations for young people are very "hands-on".