Kettle Creek school celebrates Earth Day
Jayna Basson couldn’t believe her eyes on April 22 as she watched Kettle Creek Public School (KCPS) students celebrating Earth Day on the Port Stanley east headlands.
The Grade 8 Environmental Collaborative Opportunities (ECO) teacher is a founding force behind the Port Stanley Village Association’s 200-Trees-for-200-Years bicentennial project.
She relished watching her students join in a PSVA event on Monday, commemorating efforts to plant 200 Carolinian trees and create a “naturalized walkway” on the berm, a 9.3-hectare, man-made peninsula between Little Beach and Kettle Creek.
“It started six years ago as an idea of Esther Wendel-Caraher, my principal at that time. She asked me if I’d like to teach an ECO class and I said sure, what’s that,” said Ms. Basson. “Esther basically said you make this class whatever you want it to be but teach the entire curriculum through an environmental lense.
“In our first year, we made some community connections, with Nancy Moore and the PSVA, and we started working collaboratively on these local environmental projects, with our main focus being that one day we wanted to build a forest on the berm,” added Ms. Basson. “Here we are six years later and each class in that time has done a little bit.
“I never thought, looking back, that I would be here on this day,” she said. “Just to see my Grade 8 students out here is warming my heart. They’re invested and it’s been a project a long time in the works and I’m excited for next year when we actually get to put some trees in the ground.”
Teams of Grade 8 students were on hand at the PSVA event – which included the unveiling of colorful project signage – and occupied picnic tables in the area of the planned Carolinian forest, sharing their knowledge of the vegetation and the waterfront park.
“Esther asked me to do this class because she knew that at home I have an enormous garden that is my summer project and we grow and harvest vegetables and put them out at the end of the road,” said Ms. Basson. “My husband (Mike) makes maple syrup every winter and I’m making mulberry jam. I just love to be outdoors.
“You can’t fake passion and I think passion is contagious,” she added, explaining what she brings to the classroom. “I get really excited about our outdoors projects and it doesn’t take much to convince the kids to go outside, grab a tomato off of our school garden and go for a nature walk.
“That’s what we do every day after math, we go for a nature walk where we just reset, reboot our brains after a rough math class, and just re-connect with being outside. Then they come back ready to learn. It’s not a hard sell.”
PSVA promotes the bicentennial project as a “community funded” initiative, requiring no municipal funding, although a considerable amount of time is being spent by senior Central Elgin officials to ensure the project fits within the parameters of the 2022 Port Stanley Waterfront Master Plan, the 2021 Port Stanley Harbour Secondary Plan, and other planning and environmental regulations.
Although council has approved the PSVA bicentennial project, council as a whole has not formally considered site specific plans for the Carolinian vegetation area. CE’s interim chief administrative officer Robin Greenall has stated that the PSVA’s plans will be presented for council consideration, perhaps later this year. Tree planting was originally slated to begin this fall.
The PSVA is actively raising funds in the community based on a plan that will require some 200 tonnes of soil mounded in the southeast corner of the berm. Trees and other vegetation are to be planted in the mound, atop the contaminated soil capped by clay below.
The PSVA estimates $200,000 will be required to pay for the soil, design work, trees and pathway materials, and about 25 percent of the required funding has been raised.
KCPS students are credited for obtaining grants from The McLean Foundation and the Jane Goodall Foundation. Part of the ECO class curriculum includes developing grant writing skills. In other years, students held art auctions, built bird boxes and flew kites on the berm to highlight the project.
Joe Konecny, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Aylmer Express
