Photo: Native plants at Thoreau Middle School, Missy Galus
Tina Dudley
In 2021, Henry David Thoreau Middle School, in Vienna, applied for funds from ASNV to purchase native plants for its courtyard. We recently received an exciting update on its garden.
Thoreau Middle School opened on September 6, 1960, and was one of the very first intermediate schools opened by Fairfax County Public Schools. Thoreau Middle School now serves 1,230 students in grades 7 and 8. The school is named after Henry David Thoreau, the American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. So, it is fitting that the school has an active environmental club called the Green Eagles, co-directed by Missy Galus.
Green Eagles is an after-school club that meets a minimum of twice weekly for two hours (sometimes more often). Its members work to increase environmental awareness of the school’s staff and student body, as well as the larger community. They have charge of the school's two courtyards and are working directly with the Fairfax County Park Service Get2Green Department and with two Master Gardeners.
Some acquired native plants, Missy Galus
The school requested funds from ASNV to purchase native plants including Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa), New England Asters (Aster novae-angliae), New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus), Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis), Field Thistle (Cirsium discolor), Lanceleaf Tickseed (Coreopsis lanceolata), Cockspur Hawthorn (Crataegus crus-galli), and Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea).
Students and parents volunteered to put in the new native plants. Missy Gallus and the Green Eagles club maintain the project, watering and weeding the new plantings.
Maintaining the new plants, Missy Galus
Maintaining the new plants, Missy Galus
Science teachers at the school now incorporate the courtyard garden into their curriculum, teaching students how to identify native and non-native plants and animals. Those lessons expand into discussions of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, environmental sustainability, and how what we do today in our environment directly affects generations to come.
Monarch caterpillar on Milkweed, Missy Galus
The courtyards now include a pollinator garden, a milkweed garden, a vegetable garden, a pond, a composting box, rain barrels, and habitat for 5-6 Eastern Box Turtles that call the courtyard home. This Spring, the milkweed in the garden attracted Monarch Butterflies to lay eggs. Teachers were able to bring the resulting caterpillars into the classroom to raise into adult Monarchs. They then released the adults into the garden. It was a great teaching and conservation opportunity!
The project continues to grow. The next additions will be more birdhouses, more pollinator plants around the waterfall/pond feature and an insect house the students will be building themselves.
We’re proud to have contributed to this terrific effort.