Alyssa posted on November 02, 2009
Not many projects are designed to teach students multiple lessons all across the learning spectrum while still contributing to the environment and teaching students how to solve real life issues the green way. However, the Benson rain garden is not your average project.
Thanks to Principal Dale’s connections with Omaha by Design and the Benson Ames alliance, Benson’s students are getting the chance to physically apply things that they’ve learned in the classroom.
“After seeing what was being done over at Cole Creek and Orchard Park with these gardens, I was so excited when they came to me and said we’ve got $50,000 left over from this grant, what do you think about doing something like this at Benson?,” said Dale. “It was just a wonderful opportunity and of course I jumped on it. The number of teachers involved and the number of students involved has ballooned.”
A rain garden is much more than the name entails. A rain garden actually catches rain water that would otherwise run off into the sewer systems which would, in turn, run into lakes or rivers, creating pollution. For the students of Benson, however, the rain garden will provide much more than a solution to water runoff.
“It’s more than just planting a rain garden,” said Magnet Coordinator Peggy Pavlik “it’s marketing because you have to explain what you are doing. It’s mathematics because you have locate exact points. There’s some chemistry involved because you have the earth science component. Every step of the way it’s so hands on. It isn’t just sitting in a classroom, reading a book and answering questions at the end of the chapter. It’s taking what you know and putting it into practice.”
To find the students who would get to participate in such a hands on activity, the school reached out to the teachers and let them decide how or if something like this could fit into their curriculum.
“There was a presentation made to the staff with some goals of the project,” said Pavlik “Teachers listened to that and thought about the standards and the courses that they teach and the teachers signed their classes up.”
So far, some of the classes that have gotten involved are Mr. Reeve’s marketing classes and Mr. Wichman’s CAD classes. Both have created presentations and models that go along with production of the garden.
As of late, the beginning steps of the project have gotten underway. Students have done site visits of the four possible locations where the rain garden could potentially be placed and are expected to come to a decision based on where it could be seen best by both the school and the community, the amount of water and sunlight that would reach the garden and by where it would be least disturbed by student traffic. The final decision on the location is set to be made by sometime next week and will immediately be followed by the students beginning logo designs for the garden.
Story By: Alyssa Hopper