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Scattergood teens build rain garden for school, Lili
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · April 28, 2010
Scattergood Friends School seniors got help from a $6,000 grant while they geared up for this spring’s service project.
Looking for something “environmentally friendly,” the seniors came up with an idea to take a spot in the courtyard that typically fills with rain and find a better way to control the water.
“We couldn’t do a wind turbine,” senior Claire Palmarini said. “But we had drainage problems. ... (a rain garden) fit the description of the grant and we could do it without a lot of expertise.”
The grant, one of four awarded by Project Learning Tree’s new GreenSchools! initiative, also requires a project that involves service learning, and the hands-on work involved in a rain garden fit that as well.
“It gives students experience,” Palmarini said.
The team of students is led by teachers Michal Lynch and Sarah Harper-Smith, which researched the 100-year-old campus, mapping out the school grounds and picking a location on the north side of the central courtyard for the rain garden.
The school also decided to dedicate the rain garden to the memory of Lili Smith, a student who died in October as a result of complications consistent with Apert syndrome. Smith’s family donated $1,000 to install a bench in the garden for Lili, and the students will plant lilies in the rain garden.
On April 15, a backhoe was brought in to dig trenches that would direct water to the spot. On April 18, the school’s 11 seniors as well as seven or eight staff stepped in for the hands-on work, which would take about a week.
“It’s really cool,” senior Connie Kellner-Miller, 18, of Wisconsin Dells, said. “At home we have a rain garden and it works really well. I’m really into sustainability, and this is a good use of that space, too.”
To slow down the rain water, the students will lay a special mix of 50 percent sand, 20 percent topsoil and 30 percent compost, the latter of which the school makes on campus.
“Water will go most efficiently through loamy soil,” Palmarini said, as opposed to sandy or clay soil.
The seniors are also scheduling two work days on May 1 and 15, inviting the community to learn how to make their own rain gardens. For more information on these work days, you may contact Harper-Smith at 643-7600.
“It is our hope as teachers that the biology and environmental courses will help to build the rain garden and use it to study run-off as well as specific species and habitats,” Lynch said. “The team is learning how to conduct research about the school site and look to use other investigations in the future to complete relevant course work.”
042910 Scat-rain garden
Scattergood Friends School seniors, from left, Connie Kellner-Miller, 18, of Wisconsin Dells; Sabrina Howell, 19, India; and Sue Grossman, 18, of River Forest, Ill., as well as, in the back, Claire Palmerini, 18, of Boulder, Colo., and Kialy Mancoo, 18, of Iowa City work on a rain garden on campus. The school landed a grant for the project and will dedicate the garden to former student Lili Smith.
Gregory R. Norfleet/West Branch Times
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