Terra Verde

Terra Verde Garden Club President Sue Cummings and member Karen Piper, Kesling Middle School teacher Liz Ridenour and some of her students unload some of the many perennials donated by the garden club to Kesling. Club members shared divided plants from their perennial gardens to help support the 64th Kesling Outdoor Education Day and the Kesling Middle School Energy Conservation Landscaping Project. (Click photo to enlarge)

Information provided by Liz Ridenour and Terra Verde members

   The 64th Kesling Outdoor Education Day was held Thursday, May 5, at the middle school. Seven teachers, 130 students and many parent volunteers participated. The program is 32 years old.

   The school’s landscape and garden areas are located in various areas around the school, as well as along the bark chip walking trail in Kesling Park.

   The Kesling Middle School Energy Conservation Landscaping Project was researched and planned by eighth graders to improve the school’s internal temperature after a particular sizzling school start. Kesling is an un-air-conditioned, baking brick behemoth, facing fierce north winds, in a former field on a high foundation. Three-foot-high boxes disguise its above-ground location. Kesling sits on a 49-acre parcel in a 98-acre park.

   For 32 years in October and May, students have planted trees and completed projects on school and park grounds. The Kesling Outdoor Education Program has won local, state and national awards. In September 2009 the students developed the ECL Project after collecting probe-ware data of classroom temperatures exceeding 96 degrees, with four fans per classroom running. This twelve-stage project will cool and wind-break the building and grounds and reduce the school’s carbon footprint. This plan was reviewed and approved by landscape architects Don Tonsoni and Rik Noe.

   Students measured the school building and grounds. They researched species and site selection. Parent, Mr. Noe spoke to students and helped them prepare the 12-stage plan for the project. The plan covers 12 areas around the school building and grounds that are being landscaped to conserve energy by shading, wind-breaking and eliminating high-maintenance mowed areas. On May 5 of this year, students, teachers and volunteers planted the fourth stage of the project.

   The cost of the first four stages of the program was $10,000. It will take $25,000 to complete the last eight stages. Participants raised the $10,000 to complete stages 1-4 with the help of student-raised funds, Learn and Serve Grants and partnerships with parents, Master Gardeners, Four Seasons and Terra Verde garden clubs, and Noe Landscaping.

   Funds to complete Stage 4 included $1,000 from students, $1,000 from Alcoa for the Make an Impact Contest, and $750 from a Learn and Serve Grant. Stages 1 through 4 also involved Don Tonsoni, the Master Gardeners Club, Terre Verde Garden Club, Kesling parents, Noe Landscaping, and Four Seasons Gardeners Club.