Learning and Stewardship on Princeton High School Grounds

Detention basins don't call attention to themselves, but this one found its way onto the front page of the Town Topics a few weeks ago. Located between the Performing Arts Center and the athletic fields at Princeton High School, its flora and fauna have become an object of study and stewardship for environmental science students. 

The main purpose of a detention basin is to catch runoff, in this case from tennis courts and a parking lot, and slowly release it to reduce downstream flooding and pollution. Most basins are mowed, but they can also be turned into meadows full of diverse native plants. 

Last year, the Princeton Public Schools hired the Friends of Herrontown Woods (FOHW) to oversee stewardship of native plants in two PHS basins, and to work with teachers and students. A student writeup in the Princeton Public Schools District News describes FOHW's collaboration with PHS Environmental Science students and teacher Jim Smirk to turn the basin into a native wet meadow. 

Journalist Don Gilpin followed up on that with a front page article in the Town Topics about the project. During eight sessions this spring, students combined the physical and the intellectual. Along with collecting data in the basin, the students are weeding out invasive species and planting natives. Our "Iwo Jima" photo shows the students lifting a tool shed into place that will also collect rainwater for watering plants. The shed was built from scavenged materials by FOHW volunteer Robert Chong. The rainbarrels were donated by Jenny Ludmer of Sustainable Princeton. 

The students divided the basin into a grid, with each student adopting one of the units. Each student then used a 3' square quadrat to study plant diversity within each unit. 

The sessions provided a rare opportunity for students to focus in on the individual plants that comprise our green world and begin to distinguish one plant from another. 

The cool, wet weather was perfect for planting and weeding. For some, this may have been their first encounter with a shovel, and the combination of grit and finesse required to give a plant a new home in the earth.

It was easy to identify the abundant native beardtongue blooming in the basin, harder to distinguish plants without flowers. Using the pattern of leaf veins as a clue, students learned to confidently weed out the non-native narrow-leaved plantain in their plots while leaving the beardtongue to grow. 

The outdoor learning the students are getting, ranging from applied analytical skills to plant identification, including how to safely and effectively use garden tools, will serve them well in life. As I said in the Town Topics article, many of them will have their own homes and yards someday, and if they become familiar with complex native habitats on school grounds, maybe they’ll dig up some of the lawn in those yards and plant natives.