The Problem
The Roots and Shoots Campaign that my 2021-2022 class has decided to start this school year actually is a fifth-year continuation and addition onto the campaigns that my 2015-2016, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2019-2020 classes began - that of a flourishing Monarch Waystation. This year's class would like to continue to build upon my previous classes’ vision by not only incorporating other native plants to attract other types of butterflies, especially those which flourish while the Monarch migrates north and or south of our garden, but would also like to inspire the creation of other Monarch enthusiasts through the gifting of “seed balls” to our classmates.
Our Plan
My 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 classes learned that seed balls made gardening easy, fun, and accessible. They learned that seed balls grow endangered wildflowers needed by pollinators, protect seeds from wind, birds, squirrels, and other critters, and has easy dispersal for more uniform coverage. So, they hand-rolled approximately 1,000 seed balls and shared them with their families and friends by distributing the seed balls with planting directions (the “guerilla” method of tossing the seed balls while hiking was the most popular to write about!) to entire school to take home to plant in their gardens. Many of my 2021-2022 class got to take these seed balls home as kindergarteners and came into my third grade class at the beginning of this year not only wanting to make more seed balls, but teach our school community about the importance of advocating for pollinators. So, this year’s class’s plan of action is to not only make more seed balls to share with our school community, but also to work on a Flipgrid digital tour of our garden and the components which make is a sustainable benefit for pollinators to share with our school community.
