EcoAddendum

With blue skies and temperatures in the mid-70s, this fall’s Hurt Park Volunteer Day could not have been a more beautiful day. Winter preparations are underway and perennials are at their last blooming stage. Thanks to Park Pride and their astounding volunteers from ESL (English as a Second Language) Instruction and Consulting, Inc., the garden is now prepped for the first freeze. While soaking in the glorious day, our volunteers learned special planting techniques, how to cut back yellowing perennials to make way for next years growth, and how to transplant to prevent overcrowding in the bed. For a few, it was a first time opportunity to plant a live plant in the ground. For others, it was getting close and personal with their fear of worms! In spite of the full two-hour workday, we still had time to indulge in some goodies donated by Java Monkey in Decatur.

Our volunteers left with seed packets and custom made shopping totes as a thank you from Ecoaddendum. Thanks to Ayanna Williams from Park Pride and to our accomplished volunteers for helping a native plant garden grow in the center of downtown Atlanta.

By Cecilia Marrero

Have you ever been to Cochran Shoals trails? I highly encourage going for a run, hike, or even a short, intense bike ride within this beautiful woodland oasis located in the middle of residential Cobb County and in the frame of the Chattahoochee River Recreation Area (CRNRA).

A recent re-routing of the trail system has been completed leaving 3 sections and rendering 3 phases just over 1000 ft each that are in need of vegetation to protect the restricted path from further erosion. Ranger Dave Thomas, VIP coordinator of volunteers in the park of CRNRA, gave us the opportunity to work with the park services and assist in this planting to re-vegetate exposed areas of the (redirected trails). Excited and ready, we seized the opportunity to take part in the event by providing native plant material for this first phase. With the help from volunteers and staff, we installed over 200 shrubs and trees across 300 feet of old trail.

With shovels and mattocks, our first set of young, determined volunteers, from Crossroads Second Chance School started the morning by digging sizable holes randomly spaced along the 300 foot stretch.  It turned out to be a gratifying experience as we finished the first job and enjoyed a few laughs and refreshments while overlooking their impressive work.  As noon drew near, a second group of enthusiastic young stewards, along with their Special Education Teacher, Mrs. Cheri Vaniman of Sope Creek Elementary, arrived to finish up the project by putting the plants in the ground. Mrs. Cheri, with the assistance of Ranger Dave Thomas, has been working with her kids for 2 months on preparations and learning about the importance of plants, how they grow, and native species and why they are an integral part of the local environment.

When it was time to wrap things up, the students finished with an amusing end to the day. Each student spread out along the existing adjacent trail overlooking the old path and simultaneously launched their very own mud balls chock full of native plant seeds.  The day ended with happy chit-chat and smiling faces as the students hiked back to their bus.  They gained both the knowledge that we are all connected to this greenspace and the broader view that we posses the responsibility to help our environment.

Ecoaddendum is glad to be a part of the initiative in restoring such a valuable piece of our ecosystem and is deeply encouraged to continue to work with Cheri Vaniman, Ranger Dave Thomas,and the outstanding young volunteers as we move forward into the next phase!

By Cecilia Marrero

by Pandra Williams

Photos by Cecilia Marrero

Over the past two years, the Hurt Park Native Plant Garden has survived a year of drought, student foot traffic, and a direct hit from a tornado.  The erosion, once problematic, is under control where the garden bed has been installed.  Many of these perennial plants are now mature, and will continue to fill out and put up additional bloom stalks in the years to come.   We have collected seeds from the garden as they ripen for propagation purposes, as well as to make native seed packets.

A tornado in March 2008 hit the newly installed native plant bed.

A view of the center flower bed from mid July. Black eyed susan, Rudbeckia fulgida, Brown eyed susan, Rudbeckia triloba,

Purple coneflwer, Echinacea purpurea, and Stokes aster, Stokesia laevis.

Above: Butterfly Weed,  Asclepias tuberosa, with a honeybee.  This is a host plant for the Monarch butterfly.

Left: Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, the same echinacea plant used in herbal cold remedies.  Coneflowers will re-bloom if the past prime flower stalks are cut back.  This plant is the host for the Silvery Checkerspot Butterfly.  In our nursery, later in the summer, we saw goldfinches feasting on the seeds of this plant.

Right: Bluestar, Amsonia tabernaemontana. Pale turquoise, star shaped flowers.A beautiful perennial,not used in the garden nearly enough, Bluestar is the host plant for the Coral Hairstreak butterfly, Satyrium titus.  More information can be had at:   Butterflies And Moths Of North America and Georgia Wildlife Federation.

Right below: Giant Blue Hyssop, Agastache scrophularifoliae with Red Beebalm, Monarda didyma.

By Cecilia Marrero

Place yourself in the forest and look down at the bare soil along the trail.  Look carefully, you will see animal prints on the ground in different patterns, shapes, and sizes.  But do you know what animals have passed by?  Where were they going and what they might be doing?  This Artscapes lesson seeks to elevate our outdoor awareness in order to help us make more accurate observations of the natural world around us.

During this after school activity, Darryl Haddock, educational director at OAC (Outdoor Activity Center), gave the kids the opportunity to explore their own awareness of animals during their interpretative hike.  After several observations were made, the kids made the connection of the common sight of dog prints and their urban location.  It also became apparent to everyone that because OAC is surrounded by the Richland Hills community, the numerous dog paw prints were most likely from neighborhood dogs. Not only does our sight allow us to draw conclusions about our observations, but our sense of hearing ties together the idea that we are not always alone in the forest.  Quieting our minds for a moment and concentrating on listening to our outdoor surroundings quickly reveals just how many diverse sounds are found in nature.  By focusing on the sounds, we can increase our awareness. Sound tends to make our sight observations more accurate, and we can draw from our senses in order to avoid a possible bad scenario in our environment and have a pleasant experience instead.

As we stepped into the classroom, another lesson unfolded as each individual became more accustomed to prints of other animals.  Georgia Educator Sarah Collman presented a footprints-themed activity as a way of demonstrating the general relationship between the forest and its animal inhabitants.  A footprint on a painted landscape represented an animal’s niche, a place of purpose for an organism. In essence, the kids learned through different observations how we, as responsible stewards, are a part of a larger element by identifying with the animals that surround them.  We were all better able to understand and appreciate our time in nature and increase our respect for the gift of our natural world.

By Cecilia Marrero

When you see a frog swiftly snatch an insect for a quick meal, a squirrel clutching a nut, or a colony of critters eating away at a piece of dead wood, they are all contributing more to our environment than many of us realize. The goal of the Food Web activity is to give the kids an understanding of the intricate web of relationships in the natural world as it focuses on the community of animals found at the Outdoor Activity Center and the food web they sustain.

In this activity, the delicately balanced energy exchange that exists between the different species found in the natural world is simplified by starting off with an interpretive hike at the OAC followed by a hands-on demonstration of what we see and hear in our local environmental communities. In the classroom, we gave the kids a specific animal or bacteria typically identified as having a major role in the food web as one of the following: producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, and decomposer. This activity allowed the children to imagine what animal occupies which trophic level in a food chain.

Trophic levels are the feeding positions that an organism occupies in a food chain. As producers, plants form the first trophic level.  Herbivores, animals that eat only plants, are primary consumers that form the second trophic level. The third and fourth trophic levels are formed by carnivores, animals that eat other animals, and omnivores, animals who eat both plants and animals. Bacteria and fungi are decomposers and they feed off decaying matter breaking it down further into fine organic material.

After working so diligently, the kids compiled all of their artwork to create a webbed layout of their interconnected food web. This activity taught us to see animals and bacteria from a different perspective and to understand that each living organism plays an important role far beyond our general scope of the environment.