Summary: New London-Spicer High School YES! students created a native prairie in the middle school parking lot’s retention pond to prevent nearby properties from flooding, provide habitat to pollinators, improve soil health, and add some beautiful flowers for visitors to enjoy. Over 150 5th graders helped seed, plant, and water the native plants and were educated about the benefits of prairie plants and the variety of plants native to Minnesota.

Description of the Goals and Actions: The driving goal was to prevent erosion in the holding pond that feed the school's wetland, reduce flooding in nearby backyards, reduce runoff into storm drains, provide pollinator habitat, and improve aesthetics of the area.

Team and Support:

• New London-Spicer YES! High School students including Stella DePuydt, Hailey Meadows, Taylor Barber, Annie Powers, Adeline Hayden, Eva Schueler, and Driel Mortenson.

• Superintendent of New London-Spicer Schools, Paul Carlson

• YES! Coach/retired science teacher, Laura Molenaar

• YES! Coordinator, Taylor Templer

Equity and Diversity Practices: YES! builds an inclusive learning community by welcoming all Minnesota students in grades 7-12 regardless of their ethnicity, culture, abilities, gender, or religion. We serve youth from all economic backgrounds by providing a unique hands-on education program at no- or low-cost to students.

Results: Students will be monitoring water levels in the wetland to determine if the parking lot prairie is functioning properly.

Process Story: The NL-S YES! team took a large problem at their school into their own hands. The problem was that community members that have property neighboring the school’s wetland had brought to the school’s attention that their back yards were flooding because of the amount of impervious surfaces at the school. Impervious surfaces cause runoff, erosion, and increase water level in the wetland. The neighbors to the school brought this issue to Paul Carlson, Superintendent of the New London-Spicer School District. Mr. Carlson brought this issue to the YES! students, and immediately the students were interested in finding a solution to this issue. The students worked very closely with the superintendent to view blueprints of the retention pond and parking lot, which was recently redesigned by an engineering firm from the cities. The students called the engineering firm to talk about the issues the school was having with the retention pond design and the engineering firm couldn't answer the questions because the person who did the design no longer worked with the firm. The students then spoke with many local experts including the watershed district, the soil and water conservation district, and the local DNR hydrologist for their recommendations to solve this issue. The students decided that the first step would be to plant native prairie plants in the area to hold in the soil. The students contacted Pheasants Forever to request help with the project and received a $1,500 Pollinator Partnership Grant. The students also received $1,000 from YES!, fund-raised, and called local businesses for the other materials needed such as landscaping rock and pine chips. The students learned about different prairie plant species and whether they like dry soil or wet soil. The students got to choose which flowers they wanted to plant. Over 150 5th graders helped seed, plant, and water the native plants. The high school students also educated the 5th grade students about the benefits of prairie plants, the different variety of plants native to Minnesota, and why their project is important. This project will hopefully be successful in preventing the neighbor’s properties from flooding while providing habitat to pollinators, improving soil health, and adding some beautiful native flowers for the community to enjoy.

Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).

Lessons Learned: The students learned how challenging and complex water issues can be and often times there is not only one solution to the problem.

Benefits: The benefits of this project include preventing erosion/soil loss by planting deep rooted prairie plants that hold the soil together, preventing runoff, pollution, and sediment from entering the school's wetland area by having vegetation to provide natural filters, keeping the local waterways clean, providing natural pollinator habitat.

Education Connections: Hands-on, Project-based learning. Extra-curricular learning.

Community Connections:

• Pheasants Forever- Alex Nelson did a site evaluation and helped us determine what was need to be done to solve the erosion and how to create a parking lot prairie

• Kandiyohi Power Cooperative-Donated 200 LED bulbs to the team as a fundraiser

• Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center-Let the team do food sales as a fundraiser at their Earth Day Event

• Middle Fork Crow River Watershed District- Jon Morales shared his expertise on water quality, erosion, and runoff

• North Fork Crow River Watershed District- Christopher Lundeen shared expertise on water quality, erosion, and runoff

• MN DNR- Hydrologist Ethan Jenzen shared his expertise with the students on the problem and possible solutions

• Morning Sky Greenery- Purchased the native prairie plants

• Prairie Restorations- Beth Markhart educated students about the various native prairie plants and what type would do well in the area

• Kandiyohi County Soil and Water Conservation District- Ryan Peterson shared his expertise on the urban storm water and rain gardens and how to solve the water issue

• Duininck Inc.- Donated landscaping stone to help prevent erosion in the high flow areas

• Mike's Dock and Yard- Donated straw bales to keep seed protected

• NL-S Landscaping Class- Helped lay stones and straw

• NL-S 5 grade students- Helped seed, plant, and water

• Master Gardeners- A local gardening club that assisted in seeding and planting

Contact:

Taylor Templer, West Central YES! Coordinator, taylor@yesmn.org