Roof Runoff Flower Beds at Arbour Lake School
With the whole concept of “trying to make the world a better place”, our Grade 8 Natural Resources classes felt the need to try and make our school community a better place with a garden. Our first few ideas were to grow vegetables in an area on the side of the school which had around five rainwater pipes which we could use as a self regulated watering system. Unfortunately, after doing some research, we came to the understanding that the water from the roof could be polluted, making any fruits or vegetables that we were to plant unhealthy. With this unfortunate news, we decided to plant flowers instead.
Before
building, we decided to research different flower gardens in small groups,
where we used planning sheets were organized our ideas into sections. This
included planning the materials, the layout, and peer editing our plans to
improve upon them. Eventually we chose one plan for the whole class and have
used that design as a template to build the planters. From that one plan we
needed construction wood, flower seeds (mainly tulip bulbs), organic material,
and proper soil.
We then had the chance to organize the organic material soon after choosing a plan as the organic material was brought before the wood. We started by going into groups and choosing different tasks to take part in. The options were separating weeds and sticks from the organic material, taking the soil in buckets from the organizing station to the next, or shoveling rocks out of the soil to put in a bucket. After a few classes we had finished organizing the organic material and had it sit outside in a wrapped tarp until it was to be added into the planters. Not long after the construction wood arrived at the school, and we started building the planters right away. We used the template that we had designed a few week earlier to guide us in the construction of five flower planters. It took us about two weeks to finish building the flower boxes. Once the boxes were complete we researched how best to layer our planters with soil. We layered the planters first with landscape fabric at the bottom, then gravel/bigger rocks for drainage, then another sheet of landscape fabric, followed by our soil with organic material. The tulip bulbs were planted near the top with a final layer of topsoil to cover them up. We hope that our Tulips will flower in the spring where we will monitor the bug activity that takes place in our gardens. Our hope is that the tulips will attract a variety of bugs, including various pollinating insects.
We have several next steps to take into consideration as we continue our project once the weather warms. First, we will need to design a water catchment system that allows the roof runoff to filter into the flower gardens without over flooding the plants. We also want to build at least two more planters to plant summer flowers in, so that we can compare our spring plants to those that grow in the summer. We also will need to monitor the water quality of the roof runoff to the water that is filtered through the soil. If we find that the soil filtered water has less toxin in it, then our project will be considered a success!
