It has been a busy last week of school at Cove Creek! There have been musicals, 8th grade promotions, class outings, field day events, end of year parties, parent meetings and retirement celebrations for our principal, Mr. Toby Cone. The school garden has also been seeing a lot of action with many classes getting out to their vegetable patch to water their plants, weed, or do some last minute planting of summer crops. Mrs. Pfister's class for example, harvested some kale which was ready, and Mrs. Warren and Mrs. Hall's third graders planted potatoes and tomatoes in their raised beds. We also had some help in the garden from Mr. Johnell Hunter, a Master Gardener from Winston Salem who was visiting with Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture.
Christina Fasanello, who will be our intern for the summer, also stopped by to join in the gardening fun. Christina is a sustainable development major at AppState and will be helping to take care of our garden while school is on break for the summer. She is part of a group of students doing an internship with Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture and will be helping out at different school and community gardens in the area. For more information about BRWIA's Community of Gardens initiative, go to http://communityofgardens.brwia.org/. On Tuesday May 30th we dedicated the garden to Mr. Cone with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and surprise unveiling of the amazing mosaic sign created by Angela McMann. It was quite a week indeed!
0 Comments
This year has been one of amazing things happening at Cove Creek School, and among the highlights was the installation of our observational bee hive. The bee hive was awarded to the school by The Bee Cause Project, an initiative sponsored by the Whole Kids Foundation and the Savannah Bee Company which aims to bring bee hives to 1000 schools to "ensure future generations are stewards of the natural environment who understand, engage, and are inspired by the wonder of honey bees while being empowered to take action through careers in STEM." The equipment grant for the observation hive included the custom made observation honey bee hive, feeders, a cover for the hive, signage, curriculum materials and $150 for incidentals such as tools, food for the bees, etc. Our Bee Mentor, Mr. Doug Galloway of the Watauga County Beekeepers Association and our own Mrs. Sabena Maiden, who is also a beekeeper, have been instrumental in getting the hive set up, bringing the bees and educating the school community about the science and art of beekeeping. Mrs. Laurie Warren, one of our Bee Ambassadors, has set up bee books around the hive and informational pamphlets created by Mrs. Maiden (you can download a copy below) to help visitors understand how a hive works and the why it is so important to protect bees. All the classes in the school have now received the "crash course" on bee basics and Mrs. Dorothy Combs and her fourth grade class have been designated Bee Ambassadors as well and help keep an eye on the hive and get people excited about it. The bees arrived on March 29th, right in time for the Blooms and Buzz Day event which took place on March 31st. The colony is thriving in large part to Doug's help, as he comes regularly to check on them and do the necessary maintenance on the hive. We are so appreciative of Mr. Doug who takes time out of his very busy schedule maintaining his own bee hives, mentoring new beekeepers and volunteering at the North Carolina Zoo, to help us with our bees. For more pictures of the hive and to see Mr. Doug in action, check out the photo gallery. The Watauga Beekeepers Association has also been very supportive of the school's bee education initiative and several members participated in Blooms and Buzz Day. We look forward to continue learning about bees and helping to educate our community about the critical role they play in our ecosystem.
For more information or to purchase the product, contact EarthBorn Organics at [email protected] or call 828-260-1559. Earthborn Organics is a local, family-owned business. Want to learn more about how vermicomposting works? Check out these insider looks into two commercial worm farms...
The Cove Creek Garden has been the place to be lately! Lots of planting and getting excited for potential harvests. Among the plants that are now growing in our new raised beds are: garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkins, spinach, edamame, carrots, kale, sunflowers, bush beans, summer squash, melon, gourds, onions and watermelon. Several classes and EcoRaiders club members have been busy working down there, taking advantage of the beautiful weather we have had these past couple of weeks. The EcoRaiders have also created a "Raiders Taters" potato patch. We divided the club into 12 teams of 2-3 students and each was given just 2 potatoes. The goal: to grow as many potatoes as possible in 3 Gallon buckets just from those two potatoes. They got to decide where in the bucket to plant them, whether to cut them up or not, how much to fill the bucket, etc. Some even added critters they found around the soil pile. Will they help the soil or eat the potatoes? We will have to wait till the Fall to find out! A couple of dates coming up:
In progress: Finishing the right end of the garden (we are working on fixing the drainage problem and will be spreading gravel on that side afterwards. We also need 8 more benches like the one in the picture so we can have a enough for a whole class. If you know of anyone handy with the chainsaw who would like to help, it just requires a few cuts, please let Marta know ([email protected]) We were really glad when Carolyn, our school's Cafeteria Manager approached our club about getting a compost bin for the kitchen. Rebecca, one of our EcoRaiders Club parents had built a three stage compost station down by the garden during the Blooms and Buzz event. We built it in preparation for a future composting program and were excited to be able to start it sooner than we had anticipated when Carolyn suggested the compost bin for food prep scraps. There are quite a few regulations regarding composting at schools that we need to look which limit the amount and type of food waste that can be composted, but scraps from kitchen prep is a great start. Next year's EcoRaiders Club programming will include a unit on waste management including food waste reduction and looking into the Smarter Lunchrooms Movement, which aims to help kids eat healthier. For the EPA's information about compositing click here. Mark, another parent also built a worm bin during B&B that is currently in operation. Check out the photos of how amazing it turned out below, and some information about what to feed worms and what not to. For more great resources on vermicomposting, go to the Worm Composting Headquarters site which is very thorough and user friendly.
If you've never heard of letterboxing, read this blogpost called "What is Letterboxing? Part 1" and "11 Reasons Why Letterboxing Rocks" on Ellie Petrov's blog. It's a free, family-friendly hobby similar to Geocaching but the objective is to collect ink stamps from different hidden boxes around the country. Letterboxers have their own stamp (bought or hand-made) and a blank notebook that serves as the stamp collection book. They use clues posted online for finding the boxes, and when they find one, they stamp their notebook with the stamp inside the box and then do they leave the imprint of their own personal stamp plus the date the box was found, on the notebook inside the box. Some clues are simple directions using geographical markers and number of steps, others use intricate riddles or require compasses. There are six letterboxes hidden around Cove Creek School's Nature Trail in the woods out behind the playground. The stamps make up a series and depict local wildlife. The attached file contains the clues of where to find the boxes as well as the blank template that can be used to collect all six stamps. Give it a try! If you like it, check out the Atlas Quest letterboxing community website which lists thousands of letterboxes hidden around the country. Creating an account is free and it's easy to get started. Members of the EcoRaiders club hand-carved the stamps and helped to hide the boxes. The pilot took place during Blooms and Buzz Day, as a scavenger. If you have any questions or think a box is missing or damaged, please contact Marta Toran ([email protected]).
EcoRaiders Letterboxes and Links: The Blooms and Buzz day was a huge success. The 2nd grade's duck hatching went great most of the ducklings came out with nothing wrong. We also had lemonade ( eco-friendly ). Then after school, we had many fun activities including building and racing a solar powered toy car, snacks, a rabbit, there was a recycling throw game, a cook out over a bonfire and hung out with friends. We also built a garden and planted plants. The next Eco-raider meeting , we started out by watching a video about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It showed us how important it is to recycle and not use plastic. Then after a refreshing snack, the kids separated into groups and went out to the creek to explore with Jess. Then everyone started picking up all the trash around the creek. The rain had washed and brought down quite a bit of trash from upstream. < Cora with a bag of trash she collected. Read about our inaugural "Blooms & Buzz Day" below. This story was also featured in The Mountain Times. Honey bees, snakes, turtles, mealworms, ducklings, and even goats where some of the guests that made an appearance on “Blooms and Buzz Day” at Cove Creek School. The event took place on March 31st and brought together students, teachers, parents and other Cove Creek neighbors around one goal: to promote environmental awareness in the community. It was a celebration of nature that lasted all day, with classes participating in special, hands-on workshops on topics like composting, recycling, atmospheric science, local ecology and water conservation. During the day, parents were invited to help with the construction of the school garden and participate in lessons. Some of them joined the 5th graders and helped pick up litter around the creek, while others learned about animal adaptations with first grade or investigated soil and worms in third grade. The day also saw the debut of the school’s observational beehive, awarded by The Bee Cause Project, which was just one of the things buzzing with excitement at Cove Creek that day! The school’s official Bee Mentor Mr. Doug Galloway, and Bee Advocates Mrs. Sabena Maiden and Ms. Jess Lingle taught classes from Pre-K to Middle School and their parents, about the importance of bees to our food supply and tools of the trade. In the afternoon, students from Appalachian State University’s Office of Sustainability set up an exciting and educational “recycling relay” in which participants had to race to put garbage into the appropriate recycling bins. There was also a booth for learning how to properly discard 6-pack rings to protect ocean life, ran by 3rd grade students, as well as a local wildlife scavenger hunt. Members of the Watauga Beekepers Association Mary Williams and H.S. Greene set up a honey tasting station and impressed Blooms and Buzz attendees with their knowledge of beekeeping as a craft and their passion for protecting pollinators to ensure sustainable food systems. Another of the highlights of the afternoon was an intense solar car race which was run by members of Team Sunergy (ASU’s solar vehicle crew). The evening wrapped up with a bonfire and toasted marshmallows. They say “it takes a village,”and this couldn’t be more true for the Cove Creek school garden. The materials for the garden were obtained with funds from a grant awarded to Cove Creek School by Chartwells K12 and KidsGardening.org, and through the generosity of local companies like Vulcan Materials, New River Building Supply, Twin Oaks Landscaping, Southern Agriculture, Lowes Home Improvement, Miller’s Farm Supply and Greene Construction. Members of the community including Joey Townsend, Chuck Johnson, Will Carter, Larry and Justin Brooks, and Rob Plummer helped by bringing in the heavy machinery to move gravel and dirt over to the new garden. Other companies and organizations that supported the event where: Cove Creek Store, Lowes Foods, M Prints, Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture and the Mountaineer Ruritan Club. The EcoRaiders Environmental Club at the school was also awarded a generous grant by the ASU Sustainability Council to help organize the event. "Blooms and Buzz Day was a very fun day and we have put lots of effort into it. The fifth grade students did the lemonade stands. They tried their best on this and it was very fun and exciting for them. They have also tried their best to make their lemonade stands as Eco-friendly as they could. Also the 2nd graders had hatched ducklings and had them in the lobby. There was a gymnastics recital for ms. Jo's gymnastic class and they had lots of fun." -Sarah F. Dr. Baker Perry and his students travel to the highest peaks of the tropical Andes Mountains in South America to study glaciers. This past week they visited the EcoRaiders to share their adventures in climate science, discuss why this type of research is important, and give students a taste of what its like to camp at such high altitudes. Dr. Perry is a professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at Appalachian State. Every summer he leads research expeditions to the mountains of Peru and Bolivia and takes graduate students like Eric and Jason with him. They instal weather stations at the top of icecaps, at altitudes as high as 16,000 feet. They are particularly interested in tropical glaciers and how their melting due to climate change, is affecting the amount of rainfall in the region. This is detrimental to communities at the foot of the glaciers which depend on the water the glaciers provide. The more the glaciers retreat, the less water these communities have. Glacier volume is one of the climate change indicators that climate scientists study, others include: sea ice area, air temperature, sea surface temperature, sea level, coastal flooding, ocean acidity and snowfall patterns (and more). Dr. Perry also researchers snowfall patterns in the Southern Appalachian mountains that directly affect our own community! Dr. Perry leads the Integrated Climate Research and Education: Central Andes Precipitation Project (ICECAP), which promotes understanding and education of the climate in the tropical Andes Mountains. Other than multidisciplinary international research, it includes citizen science and K12 outreach initiatives (like the awesome K-8 climate science resources developed by local teacher Darcy Grimes who traveled to Peru with Dr. Perry). For more information about their educational initiatives and research, check out the ICECAP website. You can also read the article on Appalachian Magazine about Jason Endries, one of the two graduate students who visited us and his research. Today we had a guest from Blue Ridge Electric Member Cooperative, Mr. Job Jacob, come to talk to the EcoRaiders about what a solar garden is. Cove Creek School is just up the road from the only solar garden in Watauga County and it is very positive that our kids get to see this move towards alternative energy in the community, on their way to school every day. We started our session on a videoconference with Jon Jacob, who was down at the solar garden. He then joined us in the classroom, in person, and talked to the students about how the solar garden was made, how it operates and challenges like the weather. The EcoRaiders had many questions (and answers!) for him. We learned that the solar garden in Watauga has 368 panels and produces an average of 100Kw a day, enough to power 15 homes. He also showed us the Sunny Portal interface he uses to monitor the PV system, and the kids answered questions about data collected. Check out the screenshot below! He also showed us the drone he uses to detect which panels are not working properly (the drone has a built-in infrared camera to detect this decrease in performance). Unfortunately, it started raining right when he was going to do a demonstration outside so we couldn't see it fly, but we hope to have Mr. Jacob again when it's sunny so he can show us. Thanks to Mr. Jacob for coming out and to Blue Ridge Electric Member Cooperative for their involvement in the community! For more information about community solar and how to subscribe for a solar panel, go to https://www.blueridgeemc.com/solar or check out Jon's video below:
Today we also want to thank Angela for bringing the snack and MsCarla and Jess for hanging out!
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
June 2017
Categories
All
|