Students beautify main entrance with landscaping project
Noah Pilchen and Emily Cook, Managing Editor and Online Editor
June 18, 2011
Filed under Student Life
“We went from a $100 million dollar school with a $3 entrance to a $100 million dollar school with a $1 million dollar entrance,” said Principal Gregg Robertson. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 17, eleventh grade IB Environmental Systems and Societies students showed off their work and celebrated the end result of the newly landscaped school’s entrance.
The new landscape was an effort designed to stop erosion and reduce storm water run-off while providing native plants for seasonal color and increasing local biodiversity. Ms. Nancy Striniste, the landscape designer, worked alongside students, teaching them about each species of plant and why they were chosen for the task.
The three-week long project required the manual labor of each of the fifty students, in addition to creating a website, soliciting donations from local eateries, learning about native plants and calculating the amounts of soil and rock needed.
Along with providing an aesthetically pleasing and sustainable landscape for the school, the students were able to physically apply key concepts they had learned throughout the year, including water management and biodiversity.
In addition to the efforts of the PTA Greening our Grounds Committee and the IB Environmental Systems teachers and students, businesses including GreenEarth Landscaping, Early Space, Sislers Stone, Babikow Greenhouses and Brown’s Hardware supported the project in the form of donations and discounts. Furthermore, Washington-Lee Alumni Tom Hunt donated his time and effort to the project.
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