Re-Wilding: Monarch Butterfly Garden
Vision
We were unclear of what direction we wanted to take before we began participating in the online webinars, but we found inspiration from one in particular, “We Are the Guardians” by Lori Snyder of Earth & Company. Lori is an indigenous knowledgekeeper who hails from the West Coast, and many of my students are also Indigenous, so she really made a connection to them.
Her focus was on reclaiming wild spaces, which got the class thinking about what we could do to reclaim some of the space around our school. Our school yard is very homogenous, with very few plants types and only 1 tree. We had some previous teachings about Monarch Butterflies and the challenges they face, which led the students to the idea about creating our own Monarch Waypoint in our schoolyard. We reached out to a local group known as Ecosuperior, who have already created multiple Monarch gardens over the city, to help guide us to the right type of plants to best plant. We wanted to ensure that the garden would be sustainable, in that it wouldn’t need to be watered or fertilized, once the plants are fully acclimatized to the area.
The learning will be relevant to them. Our goal is to have the older students do presentations to help solidify their learning.
Our school is in a lower socio-economic area, so we are hopeful that this garden will become a place in the community where families can come and experience a wild space that is beautiful to look at.
Action
We have reached out to a local nursery to order all of the supplies we would need.
After ordering our gardening supplies, students began to create information posters so that they could share their learning with the younger students in the school. Many of the younger students have been raising painted lady butterflies in their classrooms, so the learning will be relevant to them. Our goal is to have the older students do presentations to help solidify their learning.
We are also planning a bench building project with our local high school, to help build connections for our Grade 8’s who will be transitioning there in the fall.
We will be planting our gardens in the first week of June, as we are still in a frost risk area before then.
Reflection & Celebration
We are planning to celebrate our garden with our school once the plants are in the ground. We have a pow wow scheduled for the second week of June so I’m hoping to have everything completed for when parents and families come.