Peel Water Story Project Case Study
Project Title :
Restoration of Eden Woods Park Woodlot
School :
Edenwood Middle School
School Board :
Peel District Board of Education
City :
Mississauga, Ontario
Watershed :
Credit River Watershed (Mullet Creek Subwatershed)
Start Date :
Spring, 1999
Programme Abstract
West of and adjacent to Edenwood Middle School playground is a woodlot that is in moderate decline. The students and their teachers, in partnership with the City of Mississauga, the Credit Valley Conservation Authority, and the Shell Environment Foundation initiated, organized, and maintained trails and a tree nursery. The process and practice of this program involved the children as positive agents in maintaining the ecological diversity of this local community, over five years.
Project Outcomes
Participating teachers, students, and community members accomplished a heightened sense of environmental awareness. The experience nurtured the students’ “participatory consciousness”, a recognition of the transformative potential and understanding of important watershed ecological knowledge, and woodlot regeneration.
Two succession areas continue to regenerate naturally, including the swail on which the nursery was planted and an extended border of the woodlot. Maintained trails have led to a reduction in soil compaction and the ground cover within the woodlot was enhanced. Students realized how the encroaching subdivision impacts this local, natural habitat and that they and others in the area require a change in mindset and behaviour.
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Start-up Support
The Edenwood habitat restoration program was teacher initiated. His belief was that children participating in local habitat restoration validates ‘authentic environmental education’ practice that could involve many students and also increases the possibililty for ecological sustainability of the Mullet Creek subwatershed.
Community Partnerships
Internal - It was necessary that the lead teacher approach school staff for commitment to the three year project. Due to the cost of the projects to the partners, a solid commitment was required from the school. The principal supported funding from the Shell Environmental Foundation in March, 1999. Money was also accessed through the school budget for materials and resources required for programming curriculum and for communicating or creating information (pictures, ecology guides, etc.).
External - The Shell Environment Foundation required project approval from an ecologist. A forest ecologist from Mississauga’s Community Services Department, Recreation and Parks Division, who was involved in the planning, provided the necessary written support for the nursery plan and detailed that the work being done was environmentally sound; (e.g., indigenous plants were to be planted in the nursery and the site chosen would be suitable). Several on and off-site meetings were held between the major partners.
Permission was granted by the City of Mississauga to use approximately 0.2 hectares of land as an outdoor classroom and to plant and maintain a nursery. A representative of the Credit Valley Conservation Authority assisted in site planning and species selection. Seedlings were later to be established in the adjacent woodlot succession areas and along the woodland edge once they matured in the nursery. Two instalments totalling $2800 were provided by Shell for the nursery project. REVY Home and Garden Warehouse management was approached by the lead teacher for an in-kind donation. Wood and materials (for cold boxes – a significant expense) and equipment (e.g., wheel barrow, shovels, rakes, watercans, work gloves) had to be purchased. REVY allowed a 20% price reduction on all items purchased.
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Project Planning
This was ongoing with the various partners. All partnered activities required extensive planning.
Student Ownership and involvement
In the spring of 1999, the City moved the park playground (swings and slides) from the south-east side of the woodlot and across the playing field so that a secondary succession area could develop. During Earth Week in 1999, Mr. Furgiuele and other several other staff from Mississauga’s Community Services Department, Recreation and Parks Division spent a day with the students. Serviceberry seedlings provided by the city were planted within the designated succession and extension areas. Students completely engaged in the activity and received individual instruction in order to effectively plant the young trees. Many seedlings have matured and today provide a tasty treat for various ‘critters’.
Plans were finalized for the opening of the nursery. Cold boxes were constructed in the school‘s industrial arts shop by students under the guidance of an experienced teacher and according to specifications set by the Credit Valley Conservation Authority. Seeds were ordered in June by the lead teacher.The City constructed snow fencing on the perimeter of the nursery, tilled and conditioned the nursery site, and fenced off and placed signs at entrances to unwanted paths leading in from 10 th Line. Signs identifying the species were artfully created for the nursery boxes by the students. Several woodlot tours were led by a City forest ecologist for the involved students.
Student activities involved designing invitation posters, forming the trails and entrances by woodchipping and lining a main pathway, developing a tree nursery, cleaning up the litter, and educating the local neighbourhood (inclusive of other school classes) through student led tours. These tours were invaluable as they informed community visitors and other students about the biodiversity and community impact on this local natural habitat. The tours also served to consolidate the host students’ own knowledge.
Children enthusiastically working, playing, and learning in their oudoor classroom dispelled the pedagogical myth that environmental education should be taught indoors. Coinciding with Mississauga ’s 1999 Parks Week, celebration activities included the nursery opening. Students planted tree seeds native to this part of the Carolinian Life Zone - Black Cherry, White Pine, White Ash, White Oak, Red Oak, Iron Wood, and Choke Cherry. Bob Baker of the Credit Valley Conservation Authority instructed students on-site about how to plant. City staff provided wheelbarrows, rakes, shovels, woodchips, etc. They and the teachers involved four classes of students in the myriad of activities throughout the week. The Mississauga News sent out a reporter to cover the nursery opening ceremonies and published an excellent account of the initiative. The story importantly included student comments.
Participants were ecstatic when the first seeds heaved out of the soil in the nursery that spring. Several white pines and white ash, and many black cherry and choke cherry seeds had germinated. The oaks did not. Apparently the squirrels plucked the seeds the night of the fall planting, accessing them by digging underneath the cold boxes. The lead teacher and his son maintained the nursery throughout the summers.
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September 2000 – June 2003
Student ownership was increasingly observed as they became involved in the planning. Teachers became more confident and creative in their programming. Many children believed that they were making a difference and the transformative potential for this educational pursuit was beginning to be realized by the teachers, the parents, and other partners. Two to four different classes of students, park employees, parents, and community volunteers were directly involved in seed planting, seedling in-planting, or trail maintenance over each of the next four years. Ulrick Forest Products provided 100 white cedars to be planted by the students in the secondary succession areas during the fall of 2001. Councillor Pat Saito involved herself in this planting and also oversaw much of the partnership planning.
In the fall of 2002, there was a second major nursery planting event. Students collected seeds from a prodigious American Beech tree in the woodlot, supplementing the few seeds purchased from Baker Forestry Services Nursery and Consulting. Pamphlets were designed by the students inviting all to the 2002 Parks Week Celebrations. They were distributed to the local community through the Mississauga News.
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There were 400 seeds left over from the seed bags, so the lead teacher organized a long term experiment that involved mimicking a natural process. The students in his sci/tech and math classes kept four seeds in a plastic bag full of wet peat moss within their fridges over winter. They planted the seeds in flat boxes in the spring and brought them into class after they germinated. The seedlings were transplanted into secondary succession areas in the spring of 2003. Our pride swelled because of the high germination success rate.
Curriculum and water connections
The degree of curriculum connection depended a great deal on the background of the key teachers, their knowledge, creative applications of curriculum expectations, and willingness to take the class outside.
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English - Students were given ample opportunity to communicate their understandings to others, providing more hope for successful woodlot regeneration. Oral, visual, and written products were completed and shared by the students: Expressive writing (journals, letters to Ecopals, and work logs); persuasive and published information writing (letters to The Mississauga News, pamphlets, and posters inviting the local community to celebrations); oral presentations (designing and carrying out tours, presentations during parents’ evenings, story telling); and formal writing (experiments, assignments, etc.). These are examples of English curriculum connections
Science and Technology - The Peel District School Board’s grade 7 ‘Enduring Understandings’ (Life System) were grounded because of the ‘local’ nature of the restoration program. Students regularly explored the biotic and abiotic factors and their interrelationships, as well as the constant changes due to both human and natural causes. They came to know how human influences can affect ecosystems in both positive and negative ways. Many of the Earth and Space Systems expectations (The Earth’s Crust) were met as well, and were defined by students’ understandings gained in the woodlot. The activity and connections made in the outdoor classroom provided student and teacher motivation to learn more about the local watershed and clean water – providing links to the ‘Pure Substances and Mixtures’ theme.
Art - Concepts and skills were developed when students constructed, sketched, or painted the various living and non-living features of the woodlot and nursery. Keen observations skills and art interpretations of local biodiversity interrelationships (invasive species, pioneer species, fungus, etc.) were developed.
Math/Geography/Physical Activity - To gain a sense of place, students spent many hours getting to know the layout (geography) and feel of their homeground. They played games, worked, read local contour maps and aerial photos, used compasses, measured contours, completed estimations of distances (such as the trails and the periphery of the woodlot), measured distances with a trundle wheel, and took note of the various areas and important landmarks in the woodlot. Maps of the woodlot were composed from students’ personal knowledge and they applied this information for creating their tours, posters, pamphlets, and school presentations. A high degree of physical activity was inherent in most activities.
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Project Celebrations
Parks Week and Earth/Education Week (1999-2003), the 2003 Peel EcoFair , and many school assemblies provided important celebration activities that recognized the work and compassion of these students and teachers. Visitors to the woodlot expressed their gratitude when they stopped to talk to the students. Local citizens called the school to tell the principal(s) how proud they were of these students. Other teachers in the school who were not directly involved began to take their students out to the woodlot more often to ‘create’ in a more conducive environmental setting.
Favourite project activities for learning
Participating in an outdoor classroom was the most motivational aspect of the program. Magical and unplanned moments were evidenced everytime we went out; e.g., seeds germinating, the red fox arrogantly sitting on the edge of the bank in broad daylight, a myriad of colourful fungal species making themselves available for viewing after days of spring showers, ‘baby’ woodpeckers chirping at the students from their nesting hole in 100+ year old Basswood, recognizing recent dumping or vandalism, etc. Going out into the woodlot in the rain or snow prompted the children’s fun loving behavior and creative imagination. Playing interractive games such as ‘survival’ and ‘red fox’ or being there socially would often inspire them for next days school activity. Having an outdoor classroom for a learning environment supported a necessary ‘multiple sense’ approach, pedagogically.
Conclusion
The aim of the Edenwood Habitat Restoration Program was two-fold. Firstly, to realize the potential for restoring the health of a small woodlot adjoining the school grounds was important. Secondly, and of paramount importance, was to extend the participatory consciousness of these young citizens that could lead to improved stewardship and potential watershed sustainability for the community. The project is defined by a community sense of partnership and responsibility on behalf of Mississauga ’s Community Services Department, Recreation and Parks Division, Edenwood Middle School , the Credit River Conservation Authority, and the Shell Environment Fund.
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