Enhancing Biodiversity in your Schoolyard

By Janneke Petersen

As a new middle school science teacher, I quickly discovered the barriers to involving students in place-based projects. One of the biggest barriers for me was a lack of high-quality science curriculum that was centered around real projects and enabled teachers and students to be contributors to their communities.  Another barrier was that most of the widely available science units were based on ecosystems half-way around the world.

By contrast, planting native plants in one’s own schoolyard provides opportunities for local learning that are far more meaningful and likely to encourage care and stewardship.  I soon came to realize that learning about the native plants and animals of one’s own bioregion and using that knowledge to restore biodiversity in one’s own schoolyard could have lifelong benefits for my students.

In this article, I offer a roadmap for restoring biodiversity to your schoolyard.  Those who follow it will soon discover that it provides an effective pathway for students to understand local native ecosystems and to engage in meaningful restoration work.