Rebuilding a Greenhouse

Recently, the teachers of RCAAS saw potential in a forgotten greenhouse. The greenhouse was stocked with poor soil, a sadly abandoned aquaponics system, hay that had become a home for rats and cats, and a lot of trash. In order for this greenhouse to become a place for students to explore botany and agriculture, much of the material that was currently inside the greenhouse needed to be altered, clean, or simply thrown out.

The renovation of the greenhouse was largely lead and completed by 4th grade teacher, Karen Foss. With a big dream and a lot of heavy lifting, she cleared the greenhouse of the useless or dangerous materials left inside leaving behind a beautiful space for learning.

Though the greenhouse still has room to grow and needs a few more bells and whistles to function properly, it is becoming a wonderful place for students to have a hands-on learning experience. During the summer learning experience, titled Power of Pollinators, a few incoming 3rd graders were challenged to help us plant and prepare the soil. They were very hard workers and now the greenhouse is home to cabbage, potatoes, sunflowers, onions, and more! Unfortunately, we are unable to serve the harvest of vegetables at the school, but they will be donated to Victory Kitchen to help those in need. We are looking forward to involving more of our students in this project as the school year starts!

Earth Day Extravaganza!

To celebrate Earth Day our 3rd and 4th grade students participated at Earth Day Extravaganza at Osborn Park on April 28th!

Mrs. Kromer’s 3rd grade class has been studying pollinators for months now! They’ve been reading about pollinators online and in books, but have also been involved in conducting citizen science research in our local pollinator garden. The students are passionate about our pollinators and the troubles they face. To share their importance and struggle, our 3rd graders teamed up and designed brochures that they handed out at the Earth Day Extravaganza at Osborn Park. Along side their brochures, the students also prepared sunflower seedlings in egg shells, sunflower and wild flower seed packets, and they helped visitors to our booth create their very own seed bomb that stores a milkweed seed inside.

You can check out the Pollinator Brochures here:

Pollinator Brochure

Pollinaton Brochure

Attracting Pollinators Brochure

Monarch Brochure

Mrs. Foss’ 4th grade class shared information about decomposers, which included live native millipedes and pill bugs to compare to the invasive earth worms! In the classroom we’ve been composting with Red Wigglers, a good decomposer but still an invasive species. The students have also collected citizen science data exploring the non-native worms. To collect this data, first the 4th grade class developed their own dichotomous key to help identify the different earth worms species. We then took our key outside and poured water mixed with powdered mustard on the soil. The mustard irritates the worms skin, driving them to come up to the surface where the students can grab them and identify their species. This data helps scientists to understand the movement of different worms species as they invade our continent.

For more information on our native and non-native decomposers, see these brochures:

Worms Brochures

Millipede Brochure

The 4th grade students also had a number of small herbs to share with our visitors. The students passed out seedlings while informing the visitors about the benefits of using herbs in every day life.

For more information on the benefits of herbs, see the informational cards below:

You can see photos from the Earth Day event here on the Sandusky Register.

Project Introduction: Serving Our Senior Soldiers

The Serving Senior Soldiers Project was a collaboration between the Students of the Regional Center for Advanced Academic Studies (RCAAS) and our professor of Ecology, Cari Ritzenthaler. This project was successfully funded through the Ohio Environmental Education Fund through the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Our project, Serving Our Senior Soldiers, will bring together students and elderly veterans, two groups that rarely interact within the community of Sandusky, Ohio, through the common goal of restoring habitat for local pollinators. Students and veterans will work together to design a pollinator garden that both benefits our native wildlife, increases the science literacy of our community members, and improves the environment for the veterans.

Project 2: Serving Our Senior Soldiers

Goals: to create more habitat for our local pollinators, especially Monarch Butterflies, and encouraging our senior community members to join the students in collecting citizen science data.
Students will plant a garden with the veterans at the Ohio Veterans Home.
Citizen science training lead by students will take place at the OVH and also at Parkvue Community.

This project is in collaboration with Ohio Veterans Home and Parkvue Community. This project is funded by the Ohio Environmental Education Fund through the Environmental Protection Agency.

Project Introduction: Lake Erie Coastal Clean Up

The Lake Erie Coastal Clean Up Project was a collaboration between the Students of the Regional Center for Advanced Academic Studies (RCAAS) and our professor of Ecology, Cari Ritzenthaler. The project was successfully funded through The Captain Planet Foundation.

Recently, it has become clear that Lake Erie is facing serious environmental issues. From an influx of invasive species to large and sometimes dangerous algal blooms, it has become increasingly evident that our Great Lake needs help. The students of the RCAAS have become well aware of the threats facing the lake that sits just a few miles from their school. Their attention to these details were most noticeable when the 3rd – 6th grade students were participating in a restoration project at Pipe Creek Wildlife Area on Lake Erie (see us in the Sandusky Register by clicking here). They were specifically upset about the amount of trash left near and in the water because they couldn’t understand why someone would pollute in their shared wildlife area. Inspired by the students’ passion for restoring natural areas and cleaning up our shoreline, we have developed a plan to get our RCAAS involved in making our lakeside habitats better for the community and our local wildlife.

Part 1: Creating monofilament tubes to be places near local fishing hot spots.

Goals: to collect fishing line so that it is not littering our lake and killing our wildlife.
Collected fishing line will be sent to be recycled and made into new things like tackle boxes!

Part 2: Planting rain gardens along the Sandusky shoreline.

Goals: to build gardens that will assist in reducing nutrient run off into the lake that leads to algal blooms and clean up pollution running off into the lake as well.
Rain gardens are small gardens that have a shallow basin to hold water and specially picked flowers and grasses that can help clean the water before it makes its way to the lake.

Community involvement goals:

To recruit sponsors from local groups and businesses to help collect the line from the tubes.
To communicate with the City of Sandusky to place our monofilament tubes and rain gardens.

This project will be completed in collaboration with the City of Sandusky, Erie County Soil and Water Conservation District, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Old Woman’s Creek, Coastal Training Program Ohio, and Friends of Pipe Creek.