Last May, the Germantown Friends campus was officially certified as a Wildlife Habitat Site. Congratulations to our 4th grade Environmental Action Committee (EAC), advised by Lower School science teacher Karen Cherubini, for all its hard work! Members of the class of 2019 worked closely with members of the National Wildlife Federation to make this happen.
The 4th grade EAC students chose “urban wildlife habitat improvement” as their Earth Force project last spring. They brainstormed all of the animals they thought could be found at GFS and then surveyed the campus and took notes and photos of what they felt could contribute to helping local wildlife. They also comprised a list of things they could do to improve our campus habitat. The students painted a bat house and rehabbed nearly a dozen bird houses that hung around campus, cleaning them and making their entry holes wider to make them more inviting to birds. They also did several plantings around the Lower School buildings, including the herb garden along the side of the Cary building and the flowers in the Commons. Finally, the students filled out an online survey for the National Wildlife Federation and uploaded their photos to receive certification.