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Berlin, Ocean Pines News Worcester County Bayside Gazette Logo Berlin, Ocean Pines News Worcester County Bayside Gazette

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Worcester Garden Club, SHES join to offer living classroom

(Oct. 13, 2016) Nature, even at its most manicured, isn’t always pretty to look at, which in itself provides learning opportunities for students at Snow Hill Elementary School.
For decades, the Worcester County Garden Club, with the aid of students, has been maintaining a butterfly garden and pond environment as an outdoor classroom.
During a visit on a recent blustery and rainy early fall morning, it was clear that the garden needed some of that careful maintenance, but it was also clear that help was unlikely to arrive that afternoon, despite it being scheduled.
“Well, I don’t think they’ll be getting out here today,” Dr. Mary Anne Cooper, principal, said as she dodged raindrops.
The garden was a bit overgrown, and some plants had already expired. Both the garden club and the school had been waiting for weeks to get routine upkeep out of the way, but the rainy, chill weather had already written off another attempt.
The pond, across a sidewalk from the garden, was in better but not perfect shape. It too was cared for by the garden club, and it too needed some freshening up.
Despite the gardens’ lack of classical beauty, they were still collections of living breathing organisms giving shelter to and providing sustenance for other organisms, which is sort of the point of having them on school grounds.
“Our science teacher, Ms. Beth Shockley-Lynch, has lessons planned around what I call the living learning habitat,” Cooper said. “Students study everything to do with habitats, including tracking water temperature and pH and note how it affects other living things.”
Parents may note how the garden affects the living things they send off to school each morning.
“It’s a real, true, hands-on learning situation for children in school. Children love science and I feel it’s important to go out and experience it with your hands,” she said. “My philosophy is hands-on and meaningful experiences that children can apply what they’re learning to and make connections.”
Interconnectivity is the key principle.
“We use it all the time,” Shockley-Lynch said. “The kids get to go out, under supervision, and feed the fish. We watch them eat, look at the water quality and pH, record the weather and see how it affects the ecosystem.”
The children take responsibility for, and contribute to, the garden, which is partially funded by grants. That it’s usually pretty doesn’t hurt the school’s efforts to integrate it into the lesson plan.
“We have something gorgeous, and we can use it to learn about the area,” Cooper said.
The garden is dedicated to the person who started the effort, Ruth Bowie, and there is a memorial stone placed there to honor her.
Ginny Lane, a member of the garden club, said there is a purpose beyond keeping the area looking nice.
“We’re focusing this year on bees. We’re planting two huge mountain mints — it’s got a tall, shiny leaf with a clover-like blossom, that bees just love,” Lane said. “We planted milkweed, daffodils and turtleheads. The kids help plant the garden and we teach them about the plants.”
Most of the plants selected have a specific purpose, especially those in the butterfly garden.
“Last June, we hatched some Baltimore checkerspot, swallowtail and monarch butterflies. Polliwogs grow in the pond,” she said.
There is always plenty of work to go around, and there are usually plenty of helpers when the time comes.
“The children plant the bulbs, and we have them help spread mulch,” Mary Lou Scott, garden club member, said.
The hardships are softened by the attitude of the garden club members, Shockley-Lynch said.
“The Worcester Garden Club members are like everyone’s grandmother,” she said. “The children just love it.”