Stormwater Mitigation
As the built environment grows in an increasingly populated area such as Durham, the need for stormwater mitigation to improve water quality and reduce flooding from impervious surfaces increases. More rain catchment systems will be required and there is an opportunity to train our young people to turn to native plants as a resource to help manage stormwater while providing additional ecosystem benefits inherent with natives.
Rain Garden Internship
The Bionomic Educational Training Center (BETC) “Rain Garden Internship” program seeks to improve STEM literacy for students by providing teachers with curricula and training and advance responsible student behaviors toward the environment by engaging them in water quality (e.g. rain gardens) and plant care projects that address how to mitigate urban storm water runoff that threatens our water quality. The program teaches students of the growing needs, demands and technological developments and careers in agri-science, green industries and green infrastructure. At a number of schools, students grow and sell native plants for rain gardens, bio-retention areas and riparian buffers that reduce polluted runoff into Durham waterways.
High school students enrolled in the program receive training through after school and weekend sessions to install and maintain a rain garden, following best practices taught by teachers trained in rain garden design and incorporation of native plants through the NC State Cooperative Extension Service. Unfortunately, the program does not have funding for the installation of rain gardens at the schools themselves.
B.W. Wells Stewardship Grant
Thanks to a $500 grant from the B.W. Wells Stewardship Fund and the NC Native Plant Society, Keep Durham Beautiful was able to fund the construction and maintenance of a rain garden at Northern High School by student-teacher teams, completed with 250 plugs of native plants. As part of the project, teachers and students learned the ecosystem benefits of natives and learned to identify and remove invasive plants.
Learning by Doing
The group of students involved in this project was an "advanced rain gardens" group. They had completed the basic course previously, and during that time they had the opportunity to learn about conservation measures and best management practices. They learned about water quality and stormwater management, including rain gardens. During the advanced course, they had the opportunity to plan a rain garden from start to finish. They assessed the property, used GIS data, learned about biodiversity, researched native water-loving plants, calculated the area of the garden, and then implemented all of their plans into the design and building of the native rain garden.
Student Impact
It was an amazing experience for the student team. They were so appreciative of the opportunity to bring the garden to its final stage, complete with native plants, even though the day of the installation had extremely high temperatures. One student commented, "We finally got to actually build a rain garden instead of just learning about them!" As a bonus, on the afternoon of the installation there was a downpour and the students got to see their newly installed rain garden in action - it held up beautifully!
This invaluable student experience would not have been possible without generous funding from the B. W. Wells Stewardship Fund and the NC Native Plant Society to purchase the native plants and materials for the garden. “We are so grateful for their support,” said Northern High School environmental science teacher Rachel Owens.