Bee the Change: A Journey Full of Buzz

Jessica Yu, S5 (YUJE) & Ms. Straszynski, Staff Supervisor (STRE)

YUJE: Whew, what a journey! If someone told me last year that UTS would plant ~200 pollinator gardens across the GTA (amidst a global pandemic!?) I wouldn’t believe it. But now I know to never underestimate the power of UTS students (aka the “bee bros”) and our invincible mask-making superhero, Ms. Straszynski. What started out as a simple question – “can we build a pollinator habitat at UTS?” – grew into the Bee the Change (BtC) project, which will (fingers crossed) continue to grow as an annual initiative in crazy ways we’ve yet to imagine.

To any UTSer reading this, you might’ve heard of us through our bee-mails or Instagram. You might’ve ordered a pollinator garden kit. You might’ve even attended a few of our work bees. Or you might have not (which, in this case, you should totally join the cult). If you’re curious to learn more about the Bee the Change project, including our behind-the-scenes working, we’re here to spill the tea in this tell-all special.

The Problem: Pollinator Decline

YUJE: Pollinator populations are declining globally at a rapid rate, impacting their ability to support the ecosystems that provide food, clean air, protection from soil erosion, and other critical ecosystem services we often take for granted (Pollinator Partnership, 2021). In urbanized areas – where pollinator habitats are becoming increasingly destroyed and fragmented – pollinator pathways are an important means of restoration for these organisms (Canadian Wildlife Federation, 2019). For more information on pollinators, please check out the recording from our speakers series featuring Shelly from Bee City Canada.

Our Response

We originally considered building a pollinator garden on the school site.

STRE: In October, Jessica brought up the idea of a pollinator garden. Pollinate TO (a program through the city of Toronto) would provide up to $5000 for schools to put in a pollinator garden. As a Biology teacher and Environmental Science coach, this could provide huge opportunities for samples to use in the lab, demonstrations to do in classrooms or ‘mini-field trips’, even experiment and research opportunities from F1 - S6. I bet other courses would use it too, as inspiration for Visual Art, Music, Math (finding algorithms in the patterns of nature), or simply a beautiful place to go to get a breath of fresh air… ah, so much for fantasy: here’s the reality. We are ‘between schools’, we could not do this at Humbert, we’re about to leave… we can’t do this at Bloor, aren’t there still trucks parked there?

YUJE: Not to mention the pandemic situation which would’ve made this endeavour impractical. But we didn’t give up! We got creative brainstorming alternative approaches, until finally, one momentous day, an oUTStanding idea popped into our heads: why not distribute 1m x 1m garden kits? (To be fair, Ms. Straszynski claimed this idea was either “very genius” or “crazy, in a bad way.” At this point, we can proudly confirm it’s the former).

STRE: Why is it genius? We can leverage the broad catchment of the school to the benefit of pollinators. Some species are migratory… imagine a monarch on its way back from Mexico, having a bit of a rest on the U.S. side of Lake Ontario, then having to fly without rest across the lake, arriving on the other side to face acres and acres of concrete with much-needed nectar sources few and far between… a butterfly food desert!

On top of this, we’re in a pandemic, everyone is at home, so… why not make a little bit of pollinator habitat at all those homes? Even without a pandemic, sometimes it’s difficult for every family to come to UTS community events - everyone knows someone who has a long commute or maybe you have one yourself. Bringing everyone to the downtown location for a celebration or to enjoy a school-based garden is time consuming and possibly not justifiable in one’s everyday life… but everyone can step out into their balcony or yard to enjoy their garden. With Instagram, webinars, and our planned website, we’d be creating community across the entire catchment of the school, not just downtown.

YUJE: The DIY pollinator garden starter kits contain around 4 potted plants and 3-4 packets of seeds, all native perennial plant species that provide habitat, food, and nesting places for pollinators. There are variations depending on growing conditions (i.e. sun vs. shade). These gardens could serve as stepping stones across the GTA for migrating butterflies, native bees, maybe even hummingbirds!

STRE: Bumblebee (Bombus insularis or impatiens?) on Lungwort flowers. While Lungwort is a lovely plant and bees DO use it, it’s not native in the Americas and can already be found everywhere. We will not be distributing this species.

FINALLY germinating: Of all the species we germinated ourselves, Showy tick trefoil was the last one to sprout by almost 10 days! I was really quite discouraged so when these finally appeared I took tons of pictures.

How the pro’s do it. This is some of the stock at Native Plant Nurseries, the people who are supplying us with most of our seed and live plants. We bought plug trays (1 year old plants, 50 or 72 to a tray) and have put them in larger pots so they have room and time to grow before we distribute them to you with some of our own seedlings. I’ll be collecting seed in my garden to share with them, adding to the diversity of plants they can offer.

SO EXCITING! This is what the bag will look like, with Maddie’s art and lettering on a 100% organic cotton carry bag. As we write this, we are anxiously awaiting for the printers to finish the bags.

The How

1. Brainstorming and UTSPA applications

YUJE: After coming up with the plan, we realized the need for more opinions (while we both think the idea is good, what if we were both completely misguided?) This is where Ms. Chien, our second staff supervisor, and Aaron Zhou (S5), our IT exec, came in. During several Google Meets, the four of us fleshed out the Bee the Change plan (including giving it this punny name!) and applied for UTSPA funding. A week later, we received $2550, making our project possible (thank you UTSPA!).

STRE: UTSPA was so excited about our project, because we were creating a community with a positive environmental impact… maybe they also liked the fact that it gives families a fun project to do together? That it’s educational? That it’s a way to keep in touch with other families or even alumni? Comparing notes on how many stems your Swamp Milkweed grew this year, admiring each other’s photos of blooms and pollinators, or sharing a recipe in which you used your Wild Chives or Nodding Wild Onion are always conversation starters!

2. What we’ve been up to

YUJE: We had our official “debut” during the first Pop-up Party ever, on Friday February 5th!

[Insert picture from pop-up party picture]

This project couldn’t have been possible without the help of UTS students. Through hosting a logo contest, we found our perfect logo drawn by Maddie Standen (S6). The next two entries shown here will serve as art on our website.

STRE: We were blown away by the number of students who participated and the quality of the logos from the full range of grades!

STRE: A panel of 2 teachers and 2 students judged the logos and Maddie Standen’s (S6) was our favourite. We loved how she merged the bee, flower and… is that loose pollen between them? We could also use it in different ways, and even with different colours of the flower. It would look amazing on this year’s canvas bag once we add lettering, and maybe even T-shirts?

Runners up

Emily Rong’s (F2) entry was more abstract, but we thought the ‘bent wire’ look was very eye-catching and could be a ‘theme’ for illustrating other pollinators (hummingbirds, beetles, butterflies). The flower colour (or type) could also be modified for variety. There’s also sort of a vibe of plant diversity depending on the support of pollinators, it’s like the bee is a trellis holding the flowers up.

Declan Fitzgerald’s (F1) logo was simple and to the point! It also shows ‘movement’ and activity, those bees do a lot of travelling while they do all that work! Again, it was simple but modifiable for different purposes or pollinators. The bee stripes on the first word added to the ‘hook’ and the movement of this entry.

Special Mention

George Wang’s (S5) entry was done in earnest support of our project, and even if it isn’t the best concept or the most skillfully executed, we appreciated the sentiment and it brightened our day! Such yello! Much stripe! WOW. Very wingy! I iz smyl.

YUJE: Luckya Xiao (S5), Risha Reddy (S5), and Sharn Singh (S5) hosted weekly work bees, where students came together to help with tasks such as gathering plant data, creating website materials, and planning for a conference. Read more about work bees in the following column by Luckya and Risha! There will be pictures included there and an exclusive sneak-peek at some fun work contents the volunteers made for our website.

Through our speakers seminar series, we’ve hosted the Ontario Nature Youth Council that talked about youth environmental leadership opportunities and Bee City Canada on the importance of pollinators.

[ONYC at our first speakers seminar!]

STRE: In the last week of May we also applied for “Bee School” status from Bee City Canada… It's sort of like Ecoschools, but specifically about bees and bee habitat. FYI: there are 354 species of native bees in the Toronto area, many of which do not sting, and many of which are ‘solitary’, that is, they do not make hives with 1000’s of others. They still eat nectar and feed their larvae pollen (protein for growing healthy babies!) but they may go about their lives completely solo, or only collaborate in a smaller way. One of these semi-social species is actually our city’s Official Bee - yes, it’s a ‘thing’ - which you can read about here

:

...and… we are also part of the Bees at Schools program from the University of Guelph. The bee nest boxes that they distribute to collect data about species distributions and food plants are usually in the school’s yard, but - surprise, surprise, the pandemic affected that too, so it’s been installed in my yard (STRE). That will change next summer when we’re ‘back to the future’ at our Bloor site!

YUJE: Bee the Change execs and Ms. Straszynski spoke at a Simcoe County District School Board wellness themed conference. We talked about one of the most important – yet unexpected – impacts this project had on us: benefits to our mental health! Check us here.

3. Kit preparation

YUJE: Special thanks to Ms. Straszynski for tirelessly driving around to pick up materials and potting/propagating the seedlings (including moving them in and out of the shed based on frost warnings!). That’s some hard-core gardening. We’re lucky to have her onboard, as this project wouldn’t have been possible without her immense hardwork and dedication!

STRE: You’re welcome! This was NOT the plan, because I thought it would be useful to have volunteer hours gaining knowledge and skills if students were sterilizing soil, stratifying, germinating, pricking out, potting up, hardening off, and monitoring the plants’ growing on. Plant identification is hard enough, but being able to identify seedlings takes finesse and ‘an eye for it’ that comes with exposure to the actual plants! While we missed out on that opportunity (dang COVID) there’s always next year… it’s perfect for M4 Bio (the plants unit) but it could also be F1 (ecology unit) or F2 (Sustainability unit).

Seeds were planted in late March/ early April and ‘stratified’ so they will ‘know’ it’s spring and time to sprout! The only other time they went back into the shed were those frost warning days in late May. It’s important to get the seedlings ‘used to’ direct light and normal temperature changes: if they go directly from the greenhouse to a sunny location, they can get a bleached look (i.e. sort of plant sunburn!) and lose leaves or even die.

With ~4 plants per kit and a 200 kit mandate, these ‘pots in progress’ represent only about 25% of the pots we will be distributing in mid-late June. Many of the pots and plants are bigger than this because they were not just started THIS spring, but up to 2 years ago.

The Future

YUJE: To prepare for next year (yes, we’re playing the long game!), we’ve started a fundraiser in collaboration with Nature Canada. Funding will go towards more seedlings/seeds and pots, developing outreach, hosting our conference, and more. For more information, click here! All donations will be matched dollar-to-dollar by Nature Canada to restore nearby nature and protect wildlife.

We’ve got more events to look forward to on our agenda:

• Hosting a virtual conference (likely August 2021, stay tuned) intended to inspire students in environmental volunteerism, post-secondary programs, and careers.

• Post-pandemic in person events

• Continuing our speaker series

• Outreach to other schools and organizations.

But once again, we suspect that Bee the Change will take turns in ways we can’t even imagine! This journey has brought so much happiness and meaningfulness to this year for me, and hopefully others as well. And it’s not over. I’m happily embracing all future possibilities.