On Earth Day, the Environmental Club at Irvington High School participated in a project to help increase the biodiversity of the High School and Middle School campus.

The idea stemmed from a desire of the district’s Wellness/Sustainability Committee to mow less and allow more natural wildlife to flourish. The students planted 500 native wetland species in the stormwater retention basin on the west side of the school. The goal of this project is to transform the area into a thriving habitat that can support local wildlife. This represents the first step of a project that will span several years.

Science teacher and Environmental Club adviser Alex Lengers declared the project a great success.

“The students were involved in every step of the process from conceptualization, then planning, and finally implementation,” Lengers said.  “The kids were into it the whole time and worked extremely hard. We were able to get all 500 plants into the ground!”

The next step is to fill in the remaining empty spaces in the grid with cardboard. These won’t need to have holes cut in them or be measured. Instead, the cardboard will serve as a barrier which will hopefully kill the grass underneath. In the fall the students will spread a mix of seeds in those spaces.