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The Clarion | May 1, 2009
News
Greenspace: Students, faculty work
to build campus butterfly garden
by Allie Stokes Moore
Contributor
Brevard College is an institution that
offers many opportunities for experiential
education for its students. From the WLEE
program to many other education efforts
to get students involved, experiential edu
cation is one of the selhng points of this
college. Earthfest was this past Saturday
and students had a chance to celebrate
Earth Day. One of the events of Earthfest
was the planting of the Butterfly garden.
This garden was just an addition to an
already existing Rain Garden, put in place
by a December ’08 graduate for his senior
project.
The Greenspace started out as just a
square of lawn next to the Cafeteria patio.
The space offered no ecosystem services
since it was a monoculture of turf lawn.
Also, anytime there was a lot of rain, the
area would flood and leave standing water
in the lawn and across a few of the com
muter parking spaces. And that’s how the
rain garden was bom.
A long shallow ditch allows the water to
collect and filter through the soil. Plants
have been placed in the rain garden and
also help filter the water, cleaning out any
photo by J. Padgett
A group of students, faculty and community members showed up Saturday on Earth Day to
work on the campus garden and add to the already existing rain garden.
heavy metals that might was over from the
parking lot.
Last Saturday on Earthfest the rain garden
added a new addition- the Butterfly garden.
The space became something unique to
Brevard Coflege. Dr Cabin’s Conservation
Biology class continued the restoration
process of the Greenspace by organizing
the Butterfly garden planting for Earthfest.
We had several student volunteers, but what
really made the day such a success was our
Dwight Chiles and Dr. Cabin spread mulch while
Saturday.
photo by J. Padgett
working on the campus garden last
friend, Ina Warren. Ms. Warren is the but
terfly lady; she has worked for many years
to build and maintain butterfly gardens
specifically for Monarchs. She showed
up on Saturday with a ton of plants, tools,
and a childlike excitement for the day’s
planting.
The Conservation Biology class worked
for several weeks to organize this event.
“A lot of planning was necessary for
the garden to actually happen,” said Luke
Smithson, a conservation bio student.
The class has been learning about prin
ciples of restoration for the last few weeks
of the semester
“One of the points Dr Cabin kept stress
ing was that talking and learning about
conservation bio is only half the process.
Eventually you have to just go out and do
it,” said Kiesha Fouch, another member
of the class.
With the Butterfly and Rain garden in
place, the BC Greenspace now offers many
ecosystem services that the monoculture
turf lawn did not. This project was done by
students for students and Erin Craig hopes
that “that students will continue to add and
maintain this space for years to come.”