From the school district:
Seth Boyden has become one of 11 schools and/or districts in the state to be
awarded a $10,000 grant through Sustainable Jersey’s first round of school
grants for the year. The grants were funded by the New Jersey Education
Association and checks were presented at a brunch and ceremony on Thursday in
Trenton.
The money will fund Story Trails and new planting in the school’s Habitat
Garden, a mostly wild area in the school’s back yard devoted to plants and
trees native to New Jersey. The story trails will be designed to lead students
on walks of discovery through the garden, helping them learn to identify
species in the garden, as well as to discover the animals and insects that call
the patch home. Planner hope members of the community will use the garden as
well.
Thanks to the grant, work on the Habitat Garden will begin in spring at the
same time the school plans to begin construction of its outdoor classroom. The
garden will be adjacent to the classroom, and the trails will lead into it from
an art circle that will be part of the classroom design.
“I am looking forward to another exciting project!,’’
Matthias Ebinger, co-chair of the Outdoor Learning Center and the man who
spearheaded the grant proposal, told the PTA leadership on hearing the news.
He was equally grateful to both Sustainable Jersey and NJEA for making it
happen. Last spring, the school got a $2,000 grant through Sustainable Jersey
that was used to create a green team at the school and to make better signage
in the garden.
“We are grateful not only because the money helps make New Jersey greener,’’
said Tia Swanson, the co-chair of the OLC, who picked up the check in Trenton, “But because it also makes our school look
more like the place where we all want to send our children.”
The work is part of a comprehensive plan to turn Seth Boyden’s large
backyard into an Outdoor Learning Center. Teaching gardens and a small orchard
have long been in use and an outdoor kitchen was added earlier this fall; a
drip irrigation system, funded by the Maplewood Green Team, will be installed
in early spring; after the classroom and the Habitat Garden are finished, the
PTA and the school will turn its attention to turning the back yard into an arboretum,
hopefully recreating what the land might have looked like at the time of the
country’s founding.
“It’s all awesome and amazing,’’ said PTA Co-President Amelia Nickles
Riekenberg.
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