| "The kids are saying this is the funnest thing they’ve ever done in school." | |
| Margaret Sedlecky, Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve |
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A new program in Alabama is supplying low-cost native plants for coastal restoration projects and free labor for planting and monitoring. It’s also imparting both science and environmental stewardship to area students.
The Baldwin County Grasses in Classes program being piloted by the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve involves about 450 students from three different high schools in the restoration of coastal dunes, marshes, and grass beds. Students are growing plants in school nurseries and are volunteering with local scientists to plant and monitor the vegetation as part of agency-planned restoration projects.
There has been tremendous interest in the program from federal, state, and local agencies struggling to pay for native plants and the labor necessary to implement habitat restoration projects, as well as from teachers and students, says Margaret Sedlecky, the reserve’s education coordinator.
“These high school students are actually out there in waders in the field doing scientific research,” Sedlecky says. “The kids are saying this is the funnest thing they’ve ever done in school.”
Sedlecky modeled the reserve’s Grasses in Classes program after similar efforts in Florida being conducted by Tampa Bay Watch and in Maryland by the Department of Natural Resources and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
She says the organizations generously provided information on their programs’ operations, which she “revised for our purposes.” One of the main differences in Alabama ’s program is a wider selection of restoration plants being grown, including plants for dune restoration.
Dune restoration became a priority for Alabama ’s coastal managers after Hurricane Ivan thrashed the state’s beaches last year. A survey of state and local agencies involved in habitat restoration also established a need for freshwater grasses and submerged aquatic vegetation.
Sedlecky handpicked four area teachers whom she has worked with on other projects to begin the grant-funded Baldwin County program last January. To participate, the “teachers have to agree, principals have to be aware, and somebody has to watch the plants during the summer months so they don’t dry out or are not overwatered.” All the schools participating either had or are putting in irrigation systems.
The first planting of student-grown submerged aquatic vegetation was this spring. As school gets underway this fall, students will work with agency scientists to assess the health of the plants.
Sedlecky notes that half the student-grown plants will always be held back in order to propagate plants for free.
Next summer, the participating teachers will create a step-by-step manual for implementing the program and will hold teacher workshops to expand the program to other schools.
“So far so good,” Sedlecky says about the success of the program.
“The students end up having ownership of habitat they helped to restore. They’re not going to walk across a [fragile] section of beach, because they helped plant those grasses. That’s the whole purpose,” she says, “to make environmental stewards out of these kids.”
For more information on on the Baldwin County Grasses in Classes program, contact Margaret Sedlecky at (251) 928-9792, or weeksbay@gulftel.com. For more information on the Tampa Bay Watch Bay Grasses in Classes program, point your browser to www.tampabaywatch.org/programbaygrasses.htm . For more information on Maryland ’s Bay Grasses in Classes program, go to www.dnr.state.md.us/bay/sav/bgic/grass_class.html.
