BWHS AP Environmental Science students create native habitat

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

A water intru­sion study com­pleted ear­lier this year iden­ti­fied prob­lems with the high school gut­ter sys­tem and down­spouts. Many were under­sized. Dur­ing very hard rain events water would come over the edge of the roof and not move away from the build­ing, result­ing in water in the high school base­ment and peel­ing paint on lower lever walls, espe­cially notice­able in the stairwells.

Dur­ing the April Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing assis­tant dis­trict super­in­ten­dent Gary Bar­ber said the prob­lem was exac­er­bated by grad­ing at the back of the high school that pre­vented water from mov­ing away from the building.

Bar­ber said the entire high school gut­ter and down­spout sys­tem needed be replaced, and water at the back of the build­ing moved to bio-retention cells where it would be puri­fied, drained to the hill behind the school, and enter the Big Wal­nut Watershed.

Dur­ing their May meet­ing, board mem­bers approved a high school roof and gut­ter repair and water improve­ment pro­gram; $130,000 for the gut­ter sys­tem, $129,000 for grad­ing and bio-retention cells to process roof runoff.

“The high school’s AP Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence stu­dents will main­tain the bio-retention cells,” Bar­ber said at that May board meet­ing. “It’s a green approach, it’s a cost-effective solu­tion, and it pro­vides a cur­ricu­lum alter­na­tive for our students.”

Over the sum­mer months the high school gut­ter sys­tem was replaced, bio-retention cells were installed and down­spouts at the back of the building’s roof were attached to sub­sur­face con­duit mov­ing water to the cells.

Fast-forward to last Tues­day (Novem­ber 6) when stu­dents in Matt Wallschlaeger’s AP Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence class were land­scap­ing the bio-retention cells as a com­mu­nity ser­vice and habi­tat improve­ment project.

“It’s a student-run project,” Wallschlaeger said. “They were given a bud­get, and they’re using all native Ohio plants, things that nat­u­rally grow in Ohio.”

To help stu­dents plan and install the bio-retention cell land­scap­ing Wallschlaeger con­tacted Bob Har­ter, who is retired from the Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources and, in Wallschlaeger’s words, is totally into native plants.

While the stu­dents were plant­ing stock, Har­ter named the plant vari­eties and explained their value to the mini-ecosystem the stu­dents were creating.

“The Red Twig Dog­wood, a wet­land species, is a shrubby Dog­wood that puts out a dark pur­ple berry, attract­ing blue­birds, late Robins, and any berry-eating bird,” Har­ter said. “The Orange Cone­flower, that spreads by Rhi­zomes, attracts goldfinches that like the seeds; and a Pur­ple Cone­flower, because it’s highly fra­grant, attracts goldfinches, but­ter­flies and bees.”

Har­ter also noted that the stu­dents were plant­ing Red Choke­berry, a shrub that puts out a red berry in the fall, and Big Bluestem Prairie Grass that can get six to eight feet tall.

Wallschlaeger said the stu­dents wanted to get some­thing started in the fall to sta­bi­lize the soil, but addi­tional plants will be installed in the spring. He also said sopho­more Kyle Davis, who has an ongo­ing project track­ing bird species around the high school, would make use of the project.

“Kyle will add more bird boxes because the plants will attract birds,” Wallschlaeger said. “This will cre­ate habi­tat for other crit­ters as well; and the stu­dents will add a sig­nage sys­tem for iden­ti­fy­ing plants so it’s use­ful for other classes.”

AP Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence stu­dent Jesse Rines said the bio-retention cell project is inter­est­ing; and that even though it cost money it has the prac­ti­cal and last­ing value of draw­ing water away from the high school build­ing and using that water to cre­ate a nat­ural habi­tat before direct­ing it into the watershed.

“This project will even­tu­ally be ben­e­fi­cial to the high school,” Rines said. “It’s nice to find an envi­ron­men­tally sen­si­tive and inex­pen­sive solu­tion to an expen­sive prob­lem. Add to that the value of what we do in the class­room hav­ing value out­side the classroom.”

Wallschlaeger said the bio-retention cell habi­tat is the first major out­side con­ser­va­tion project his stu­dents have par­tic­i­pated in other than Kyle Davis’ bird­house project.

“Hope­fully the stu­dents will think more about being involved in out­door projects that enrich the qual­ity of their sur­round­ing area,” Wallschlaeger said. “We would like to get more stu­dents involved, keep this ongo­ing, and each year add to it.”

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.