Students from the Elmwood Village Charter School got a lesson outside the classroom Wednesday. In this Focus on Education report WBFO's Eileen Buckley says the school received a grant to install a rain garden next to the school's parking lot on Hudson Street.
Inquisitive first graders were full of excitement, offering their own insight about planting flowers and bees buzzing near them. Representatives of PUSH Buffalo guided the young students as they worked around a small dirt patch outside their school building. The children were given small garden shovels and asked to dig holes to plant a batch of perennials creating a rain garden.
Ann Sullivan is their teacher . She said students have been studying plants and life cycles. "I don't think anything can beat hands on learning. It's just so much more beneficial than anything else I can really do for them. I could never provide this in my classroom," said Sullivan.
Esmeralda Jimenez is a PUSH Blue outreach coordinator.
"The rain garden is design to catch run off from the school's parking during heavy rains. It helps protect our water and environment.
"Basically we are keeping the storm water out of our sewer systems, since we have a combined sewer overflow issue here in Buffalo," stated Jimenez. "To keep that from happening." http://youtu.be/MfIf7TWabLs
The children were very eager to dig and plant the flowers and didn't mind getting their hands dirty.
"The rain garden is suppose to suck up all the water when it rains," said one first grader as she worked on the garden. "We found two worms and we learned about more flowers," said another first grader as he showed his dirty hands.