Walsingham kindergarten students pose with one of the school’s raised garden beds, which several different grades take part in building, growing and maintaining. Courtesy of Walsingham Academy (HANDOUT)
For students at Walsingham Academy, enthusiasm for the planet is infectious.
From the greenhouse, which houses the vegetables that the first graders and 4-year-olds are growing, to the student-assembled raised garden beds, where the kids are learning about the lasagna method of planting, themes of cultivation and sustainability are present on campus as well as in the curriculum.
“Being an environmental steward and not just being an isolated entity on the planet is kind of what our core values go back to,” said Kim Ward, who teaches science to Walsingham’s pre-K students through the 7th graders. “We’re not alone. We have to help each other and work together.”
For its dedication to environmental stewardship, Walsingham — a private school for grades pre-K through 12 — recently received its fourth Virginia Naturally honor, which recognizes the efforts of Virginia schools to increase the environmental awareness and stewardship of students.
Last year, student Mikey Vahey was so inspired by his fourth grade lessons in plants and photosynthesis that he went home and built his own garden, full of cucumbers, squash, beans, carrots and more.
“(I was inspired) by just learning about plants,” he said. “Like how plants work, like the stem and photosynthesis, the roots and how they collect nutrients from the soil and how they spread seeds around.”
Students Mikey Vahey and Ethan Blossom help distribute milkweed plants at the Williamsburg Farmers Market. Fourth graders at Walsingham grow milkweed during their unit on plants and photosynthesis. Courtesy of Walsingham Academy (HANDOUT)
During their plant unit, Walsingham’s fourth graders also work on a milkweed project, during which they germinate more than 500 milkweed seeds and then, once the plants are grown, give them away at the Williamsburg Farmers Market in Merchants Square to promote the effort to save the monarch butterfly population.
Vahey, Kourtney Taylor and Nadia Clark are among the students who grew milkweed last year with the help of William & Mary associate professor Joshua Puzey. During the project, the students got to take a trip down the road to William & Mary’s campus where they visited the school’s greenhouse and help care for hundreds of milkweed plants.
Milkweed — which also grows on-campus in an oval ring garden designed by Walsingham’s seventh graders during their STEM class — is the sole host plant of the monarch butterfly, which lays its eggs on milkweed so the caterpillars can feed on the foliage.
“It’s the only thing that monarch butterflies would eat,” Taylor said. “And (monarch butterflies) were going extinct, which is really sad.”
Science teacher Kim Ward demonstrates what a milkweed pod looks like. Milkweed plays a big role in both Walsingham’s fourth grade curriculum and the monarch butterfly’s life cycle. Courtesy of Walsingham Academy (HANDOUT)
Much of the school’s curriculum ties back to compassion and service, including in the sphere of environmentalism.
As a Sisters of Mercy-founded institution, Walsingham is led by five critical concerns: the Earth, immigration, nonviolence, racism and women.
“We respond to the impoverishment of peoples, the devastation of Earth and oppressive social systems by focusing on our (critical concerns) and the interconnections among them,” the Sisters of Mercy website reads. “We show our commitment to these concerns through personal transformation, community choices, educational outreach, legislative advocacy, corporate engagement and spiritual practices.”
From Walsingham’s youngest students, who help plant — and eat — the vegetables in the school’s gardens, to its oldest, everyone takes part in the school’s year-round efforts.
Junior Bryce McHose is another example of how Walsingham’s students are getting inspired to make an impact.
In February 2020, McHose helped launch the Williamsburg Area Thirst Project, a branch of the Thirst Project nonprofit organization, which visited McHose’s geography class and inspired the 11th grader to get involved.
The organization’s mission is to build freshwater wells in developing communities that need safe drinking water. So far, more than 3,000 water projects in 13 different countries have been built or funded by the Thirst Project.
Over the course of more than two years, McHose and his team have raised over half of the $12,000 they’ll need to build their first well in Eswatini in Africa.
During the fundraising process, McHose has received plenty of support from Walsingham. School administrators gave him permission to host a car wash on campus, which raised over $1,000. Since then, he has put together more car washes, plus a walkathon and a bracelet sale.
Sixth grader Reese VandeSand and junior kindergartener Liora Haeberle work together to plant in Walsingham’s Learning Garden. Courtesy of Walsingham Academy (HANDOUT)
Like the younger students, high schoolers also get a chance to plant as part of their studies.
In her AP human geography class, teacher Laura Broderick talks to her students “about how humans interact with their environment. Of course, one of those ways is through environmental sustainability.”
Part of the class includes planting and maintaining crops in the greenhouse to “try and explain to them how difficult it is for people throughout the world who rely on sustainable agriculture to actually produce their own food,” Broderick said.
“Some people were successful,” McHose added. “Others not so much.”
During the course of the project, the students “learned a valuable lesson” about just how much time and attention crops can need.
“When you go on spring break for a week and a half and no one is watering your crops, your crops tend to die,” Broderick continued. “It was a very good lesson that they learned — that people who rely on this really have to be in tune, and they cannot go on spring break for a week and a half. The larger picture is having them appreciate the types of agriculture that we have available to us and how they can help preserve the Earth.”
For Ward, the hope is that her students come away with the tools to be “a better citizen and person of the earth.”
“Knowing that they’re not the only ones,” she said. “Thinking outside of themselves. That’s part of our core value system that is prominent through every grade and every subject matter.”
Sian Wilkerson, sian.wilkerson@pilotonline.com, 757-342-6616
Copyright © 2022, Daily Press
Copyright © 2022, Daily Press