By Jaimie Rosenwirth, Suwa’lkh Lead
This spring for Science Odyssey, we partnered with Coquitlam Heritage at Mackin House. Check out the video below!
We worked with the Suwa’lkh School leadership class to set up a native plant garden at Mackin House near their rose garden. We started by taking a couple of visits to observe the space before planning out the plants. From there, the youth worked out a plan by asking questions to Fresh Roots as well as Mackin House. Once they had the answers, they had decided from the plants we had available to onsite from the native plant nursery and set out making maps of where they thought the plants would best be. We then set up a morning to go and put in the work to put their plan into action.
Through this opportunity, the youth had a great time and they put their teamwork skills to the test. It took them a minute to get the flow of things, but once everyone knew what they were doing, things moved along well. After that morning to plant, the youth had a couple of visits to check on how things were transplanted. We lost one plant so we replanted another one. They also watered a couple of times before the end of the school year. I hope to take the youth back in the fall for a visit to check on things.
Thank you Coquitlam Heritage, Science Odyssey, and NSERC for creating spaces for youth to grow and engage in the science and community!