WEST CAPE MAY — With some of the $2,000 in funding that the West Cape May Elementary school was awarded by the Sustainable Jersey for Schools program, several teachers and parents created an area for students to build a pocket meadow. This is similar to a garden where native plants (i.e., grasses and flowers) are planted to attract wildlife. Teachers Karyn Essex, Jennifer Ridgeway, and parents Trish Miller and Mike Lanzone worked with Dr. Inga La Puma, parent volunteer and Green Team Coordinator, to dig out the sod near the school sign and create a border for the new pocket meadow.
With native plant donations from Pat Sutton and her Gardening Gang, Josh Nemeth from The Wildlife Gardener, and Gretchen Whitman of the Nature Center of Cape May, the Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten classes had a lesson from Dr. La Puma where they were each part of the food web and we used a string to create an elaborate web connecting all parts (i.e., students) in our ecosystem. Then Mr. Nemeth explained the importance of biodiversity by talking about how the students didn’t like all the same food and neither do the pollinators and small animals.
After Mr. Nemeth explained how to use the tools, the classes went outside to plant the perennial grasses and flowers. There were quite a few parent volunteers for the event, and each teacher and parent was in charge of helping three students to plant their plants.
In no time the bed was planted! Those children sure like digging! Also our two donated water dishes were installed with soil amendments provided by Mr. Nemeth.
We are working on a watering plan using two watering cans donated from Lowes since the meadow is so far from our school building. This garden qualifies as a biodiversity project under our Sustainable Jersey for Schools certification application.
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