Vision

Our vision is to increase the awareness and knowledge of the students and our community here in Montague, Prince Edward Island. It is important that everyone understands that pollinators are more than just bees, and have a much bigger role than to simply make honey. While honey has its role and importance, we need to spread the word that pollinators are crucial to our well-being in so many ways (food access, plant growth, etc.). Our community must also understand that our pollinators are in trouble, if we do not help them, and that we can have a big impact in providing the pollinators rich environments where they can thrive. We also have as a vision to create partnerships with organizations and community members in our area in order to learn more and do more in regards to sustainability and helping our environment.

Action

We decided to focus our attention and energy on the decreasing population of pollinators. With much research, we determined that we could help them in our own school yard by better using the space. We decided to create a pollinator garden in order to attract bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other wildlife. We also decided to place the large garden in a way that it surrounds our new and developing school vegetable garden. This way, both gardens can work together and help each other. Although we have many wooded areas in our beautiful school yard, we did notice a lack of plants provided what our important pollinators need. We know that we need our pollinators for so many reasons, including food, healthy air, and more. We have learned that bees do much more for our Earth than just making honey. We also made sure that we spent our entire budget locally in order to support businesses in our community. We purchased our tools from the local hardware store, and our plants from the local nursery. We also only purchased native plants. We are also working with experts in our community in order to rebuild a traditional acadian forest here on PEI, and we thought that sticking to native plants for our pollinator garden would be a great contribution.

Reflection & Celebration

Thinking back on this project, students have become increasingly motivated to do their part for our Earth. They have grown passionate about nature, its importance and beauty. Our pollinator garden has brought so many classes together outside. Groups are collaborating more, as well as further communicating and learning about pollinators. This project has also added so much beauty to our school yard, and has allowed us to build a partnership with our local nursery, MacPhail Woods.