Shenandoah Park teams up for pollinator education.

Casper Wong June 23, 2023 Education & Career

Shenandoah National Park Partners with Schools to Educate Students on Pollinators

LURAY, Va. (WHSV) – Shenandoah National Park (SNP) has partnered with schools in Harrisonburg and Page County to educate students on the importance of pollinators in our ecosystem.

This past school year, SNP received a grant from the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) to give four schools the opportunity to learn more about the importance of pollinators and protecting them.

The four schools involved are:

Spotswood Elementary School
Stone Spring Elementary School
Luray Elementary School
and Page County Middle School

The Importance of Citizen Science and Pollinator Gardens

The students used citizen science to study pollinators in the park and near their schools as well as collected seeds for their pollinator gardens at their schools.

Margo Roseum, an education technician with SNP, said this program helped expand on standardized material taught in school.

“Really what we try to do is connect their state standards that they are learning in the classrooms,” Roseum said. “So we saw they have this base knowledge on why an ecosystem is important and what they learned what a pollinator is, they had this ability to connect it to the adaptations they learn about in the third grade.”

Engaging After-School Program Activities

The after-school program consisted of activities such as interactive games and lessons, poster board presentations and creating long-lasting pollinator gardens at their schools.

“The knowledge and importance and the connections we made with students at all four schools is something they will carry forward in their learning and their community,” Roseum said. “We will build on this idea of a pollinator garden so we may work with some new schools in these CCLC groups and we may work with some continued schools.”