What is Schoolyard Stewards?

In partnership with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and Lands and Waters, Living Classrooms of the National Capital Region has developed the District Schoolyard Stewards program (DSYS) to provide a project- and investigation-based learning experience for students. The program centers on the questions, “what is stormwater runoff pollution, why is it harmful, how can we help prevent it, and how does it impact the watershed as a whole?”

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Why schoolyard gardens?

Throughout the program, students from DC schools work within their own neighborhoods, schoolyards, and the local watershed to investigate this important urban environmental issue, to examine their own attitudes and behaviors, and to seek solutions to this problem.

Action steps of the project include in-class watershed education, shipboard watershed investigation, schoolyard greening projects, impervious surface reduction, community outreach, and other schoolyard based projects.

Main objectives of the program are as follows:

To replicate a sustainable, ongoing project for urban schools to attain the education and outreach goals of the Chesapeake Bay 2000 Agreement.
To provide a meaningful Chesapeake Bay experience for students in DC schools
To serve students who live near the Anacostia River in Washington, DC.
To engage all students in a sustained, investigation, and project based hands-on learning program, incorporating in-class, on-water, and on land programming and projects.
To effect a measurable reduction of runoff pollution in the neighborhoods of participating schools due to the implementation of various stormwater pollution reduction strategies.
To help students create green space in their schoolyards.
To create public awareness in the schools’ communities about stormwater runoff pollution issues and solutions.
To attain a measurable change in students’ attitudes towards their environment.

In-Class Lessons

Fall is spent taking an in-depth look at subjects related to stormwater run-off: Students are first familiarized with the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Using LC-NCR’s unique watershed model, students investigate how land use affects stormwater runoff. Through this lesson students begin to understand that they are part of a larger ecological system and that pollution from stormwater runoff is a regional concern.

Following this lesson, students journey onto the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers aboard LC-NCR’s educational vessel, m/v Half Shell. This trip allows students to experience the river up close and personal, witnessing first-hand the impact of stormwater runoff in the watershed. Hands-on activities while on board include water quality testing, plankton studies, gaining navigation techniques, filter feeder investigations, use of a run-off model, participation in a benthic grab, trawl fishing, and local aquatic species identification.

In an effort to discover how “green” their own school is, students next participate in a schoolyard assessment in late fall. Using schoolyard report cards, students spend time on the school grounds examining four topics: runoff/erosion, transportation, vegetation, and biodiversity. Students collect data on everything from the types of runoff control systems present to how fertilizer is applied to the lawn. Afterwards, the class analyzes the results of the report card and examines ways to create a “greener” school. Students use an interactive poster to first discuss the problems they’ve discovered and then demonstrate solutions to those issues.

Finally, students receive a lesson in composting. Each class creates a worm bin to produce compost for the spring greening project. Through composting, students learn about the importance of decomposers in an ecosystem and ways to reduce waste headed for landfills.

Except for the day aboard m/v Half Shell, each class is split in half for these lessons. While one half of the class is participating in the lesson, the other half is helping to prepare the garden site. This involves such tasks as removing turf grass, exotic plants, and concrete; amending the soil; and weeding. The two halves then switch so that everyone experiences all aspects of the program.

Planting Days

Each class participates in a planting day in the spring. To ensure that all students receive individual attention while planting in the garden, each class visits the garden on its own for an hour and a half. During this time, students are broken into small groups and rotate through the following stations:

Planting station - each student works closely with experts from Lands and Waters to plant one to three native plants in the garden.
Erosion station - working in groups, students use models to watch erosion at work and see first hand how plants curb the loss of soil from the land.
Awareness station - working in groups, students paint cloth banners with colorful pictures and messages about their garden. The banners are then hung on poles in the gardens. Along with display signs in the gardens, these banners announce to the community that the garden was planted by students at the school.
Discovery station - students spend time digging in the soil, looking for earthworms, uncovering beetles and ants, examining roots, etc. A majority of the students enrolled in the schoolyard stewards program had never before been allowed to dig in the soil or hold an earthworm. This station allows students to get “down and dirty” in the garden.


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