LANDSCAPE NATIVE

More Fun! Greater Academic Potential!

Most schools in Southern Ontario are laden with potential for improvement.

Think of all the schools that you've driven by that have huge fields of solid lawn, or entire yards of asphalt and concrete. Even those schools that have some shade trees are still ripe for a makeover that's great for improving childrens' play time and beneficial to the over-arching environment.

Take the school pictured at right. While basketball and hopscotch are important activities, rooting around in the leaves, hiding behind bushes or going 'full steam up a hill of soil are spontaneous games that kids can't safely engage in on a strictly hard and impermeable surface. Also, where is the shade on hot summer's days? Some gardening approaches will alleviate the hot, blazing sun with a shade tree or two, but when we fully engage ecosystem gardening, we improve on site biodiversity thereby vastly improving local urban ecology.

At left, a different setting shows the beginning of a native plant and small water body installation. These schoolyard creations provide ample opportunities to explore in a rich environment of varied shapes, textures, smells, colours, as well as multiple perspectives. Children that spend time in natural settings are shown to have better concentration in class, are calmer, and an innate connection to the out of doors is cultivated much more easily.  

A child can spend hours examining the smallest insect, can make 'stews or soups' out of dried, leaves, broken sticks and puddle water or watch tadpoles through a magnifying glass for hours on end. 

A natural setting affords opportunity for spontaneity, whether it be an interesting game of tag, heightened by the mysteriousness of hiding under a bush or in the tall grass, or a game that an adult can't even begin to think of.

Schoolyard Tallgrass Prairie Project

Tallgrass prairies (TGPs) are 'Kings' at sequestering carbon from the air in their extensive root systems. TGPs are also great for biodiversity as they attract many insects, birds, and many other animals. 

Contact us to join today and have fun while helping stop the impacts of climate change.

Globally, the above and belowground storage of carbon in temperate grasslands is estimated at 335 billion tons, 97% of which is contained in the soil. This represents the amount of carbon released by 240 billion cars in one year (Quoted in www.sustainablesites.org).  ~ Amthor et al., 1998; U.S. Climate Technology Cooperation, 2007

Get Involved with ReForest London

In 2008 alone ReForest London reached over 2,500 students with their tree education messages. Thousands of trees have been planted by ReForest London with local school-aged children. ReForest London's outreach efforts have delivered hundreds of tree watering kits and maintenance tips have been distributed to dozens of schools across London.

Talk to a teacher, your principal or environmental group about getting London's local tree experts involved with your school. By doing so, you are supporting a great local charity; call [(519) 936-9548] to get ReForest London involved today.

How We Can Help Your School

There are many ways in which we can help schools naturalize their schoolyards, adding native plants and even small ponds.

Get involved!

1. We play an Advisory Role - we will help an existing or new school naturalizing group go through the steps to undertake a project.

• See our ‘Do It Yourself’ page
• Soon coming: Sharing a Successful School Landscape Program: The Landscape Enhancement at the London Waldorf School: A Strategy, Work and Maintenance Plan to Improve Biodiversity and the Child-Nature Connection

• If you need more assistance we can consult you on some of the key steps

2. We’ll Do It All for You – see our ‘Garden Menu’ page or ask for something ‘custom designed and built and Landscape Native can do it.

• We will navigate you through the process of approvals, raising money, finding committed volunteers and completing the installation.

3. Schoolyard Tallgrass Prairie Project 2010-11 - join today by setting up a meeting with your school and Landscape Native; help sequester Carbon and stop climate change, while learning about plants, biodiversity and while having fun! For two years, we will mentor your school and group and help see your school and many others cumulatively plant a whole lot of tallgrass prairie!

• We are looking for a minimum 25 schools in London
• Participation means your school commits to planting a 15 m2 (half a parking space) area of tallgrass prairie
• We facilitate the planting, teach you how to care for the plants, how to calculate your carbon sequestering impacts (in the roots)
• Cumulatively, we match your school with that of the other London schools - 'How much of a difference can London schools make on climate change?'
• The cost per school for training for program installation,  advisory roll, 300 plants, and other associated educational and training tasks is between 500 and $1000. This amount can be raised by grants, and fund raising.
• Do your own research on the benefits of ecosystem gardening, native plants, and the need to improve urban ecology - we're sure you'll agree it's time to get involved!