Bright minds are shining light on pollinator garden efforts at two Newtown schools.

Students at Reed Intermediate School and Newtown High School are working to plant the way to providing food for pollinators in conjunction with Protect Our Pollinators (POP), a local nonprofit group with the mission “to save our endangered pollinators through education and action.”

NHS Greenery students are working under the guidance of teacher Shawn Mullen. The school’s junior courtyard was a hub of activity on May 3, when students buzzed about, preparing raised garden beds and distributing plants. Chives, lavender, pansies, creeping phlox, and three types of milkweed were just some of the plants the students put to bed that day. The effort is ongoing, and the following week, more Greenery students met near the school’s cafeteria. Their arms were filled with trays of sprouting plants. Some students carried plants to the main entrance to plant them below the NHS sign on May 8.

Mr Mullen said the effort to create pollinator gardens at NHS had been underway for about one month, since he was approached by POP with the idea to plant pollinator gardens at the school.

The gardens at NHS and Reed will be “steps” along the Newtown Pollinator Pathway, sponsored by POP.

“Our goal is to create a corridor of contiguous pollinator-friendly properties in Newtown that includes public open spaces and adjacent private ones belonging to residents,” a description for the Pollinator Pathway on the initiative’s website, pollinator-pathway.org/newtown, reads.

POP co-founder Mary Wilson said this week that both Reed and NHS “just took the suggestion and ran with it” after being approached to create the gardens.

After NHS students had situated plants around the school’s main entrance sign, Mr Mullen enthusiastically told the students, “All right: Let’s go. Plant it!” He explained to the students holding perennials that the plants will “come back bigger and better” next year.

The school pollinator gardens are just some of the efforts sprouting in town this spring. As reported by The Newtown Bee, gardens are in progress on Newtown Forest Association property, at Newtown’s Brian J. Silverlieb Animal Care and Control Center, and local Boy Scout Ryan Stutman is overseeing a garden project at Cherry Grove Preserve.

RIS Effort

Reed Intermediate School Science Club students huddled around a table on May 9, discussing plants in the school’s courtyard with advisors Peter Bernson and Todd Stentiford, who explained they would use an iPad app, called iNaturalist, that day to take photos and identify plants already located in the central area of the school. The courtyard at Reed is completely surrounded by the building. The grassy hill sweeps down from one side of the building to the other, and patches are covered with trees, shrubs, flowers, and other greenery.

Mr Stentiford told the students a horticulturalist shared news that the plants in the courtyard had been planted for aesthetic purposes and some are invasive to the area. The club’s mission is to identify current plants and plan a new pollinator garden. Club members have been working to remove invasive plants already. Reed’s Gardening Club is also assisting in the effort to plant a pollinator garden at the school. Next school year, all fifth and sixth grade students will work on the effort to maintain the pollinator garden, according to Mr Stentiford.

Soon, the Science Club students were outside, ambling from one area of plants to another with iPads at the ready.

Ms Wilson said the NHS and Reed advisors have been “a pleasure to work with.” Lists of plants were given to both school efforts by POP, and Ms Wilson said the schools have been enthusiastically taking initiative on the efforts.

“Hopefully, these kids will go home and talk to their parents... and maybe some pollinator gardens will happen at home,” Ms Wilson said, adding that children are the “wave” of the future.

“We couldn’t ask for a better partner at the schools,” said Ms Wilson, adding later that the NHS and Reed teachers are knowledgeable and the students are “fortunate to have teachers like that.”

More information about the Pollinator Pathway initiative is available at pollinator-pathway.org. More information about POP is available on its website, propollinators.org.