TOLEDO, Ohio — The students and teachers at Marshall STEMM Academy are working to be agents of change for our community.
They took the first steps Wednesday to create a native prairie on the grounds of the South Toledo school.
Teachers who drove the initiative aim to create something that will interest students for years to come.
"The students can watch it grow. They'll feel like they're a part of it, the community feels like they're a part of it. They will use it to observe and the teachers will be able to use it to teach," Toledo Public Schools Board of Education member Bob Vasquez said.
Marshall STEMM is the latest Toledo-area school to plant native prairie plants as part of the Toledo Zoo's Wild Toledo program, in which students create urban prairies.
The projects offer a number of benefits. They create native areas that attract pollinators and birds and also help the environment by improving rainwater management and reducing water runoff.
And one of the best parts for the school is that there are plans to use the prairie daily.
"As a STEMM school, we focus on project-based learning as our instructional strategy. We have found, and the research will support, that our students are most engaged and learn the most when they're solving problems relevant to their lives" Principal Douglas Bell said.
The third- and fourth-graders who helped scatter seeds Wednesday will start to see the first signs of growth this spring, but the prairie won't be fully developed for a few years.
"It takes about three years to establish a prairie like this. It goes through different growing stages and you have to be patient, but that's the good part about this. The students here will be able to watch it go through those stages," Vasquez said.
But this is just the beginning, the principal says they are going to create a walking path, have some signage, and make some learning stations.