Gloucester City High School Courtyard Makeover

By: Lauren Marchese, Kyle Johnston,

Stephanie Lado and Alysia Haney

Mr. Lattanzio\’s 7^th grade advanced Science Class

 

As Earth Day was rapidly approaching, and our class was covering a unit on plants, we chose to makeover our courtyard, to help our environment.

In this bleak, unused garden TLC was desperately needed. Our science class wanted to eliminate this problem, and that is exactly what we did.

So, as we spiritedly redid this distorted land, it was running through our heads who to thank — the generous parents who donated supplies, our teacher who organized the whole thing, and other 7^th and 8^th grade students who helped us immensely. We decided that being grateful to everyone would be the only fair thing to do.

Everyone contributed to this project and definitely made this challenge and service a complete success. Admiring our work and taking it all in was the best part.

The smell of freshly planted mulch and plants filled the air. We achieved our goal and the courtyard looked as good as new. Flowers, shrubs, mulch, and trees, all in full bloom. Our hard work and donations made this project a success.

We feel it is a privilege to have been able to humbly serve our school, students, and our community. Our class made the courtyard a better place, and set an example for others to do the same for their community. We are proud to have done our part to help the environment.

An added bonus to the makeover was when we discovered a mother duck incubating eggs in a nest. We have named the duck \”Quackers.\” The real surprise was when we returned to school on Monday, April 30^th, and found ducklings running around in the courtyard.

Students learned a first-hand lesson about the food chain on May 1. A hawk had entered the courtyard and was determined to feast on a duckling. Quackers defended her young diligently; however, the hawk escaped with one of the ducklings. A rescue operation was successful.

Quackers and the remaining ducklings were moved to a safer place in the green house, where they were much safer in the green house then in the courtyard.

But, we realized that Quackers and the ducklings needed to be free. So, on May 2, some students and our teacher, Mr.Lattanzio, took Quackers and her ducklings to the minihole, where we released them into the wild where they could be free.