By Publications Class
Have you ever ruined a pair of shoes trying to leave school via the Nashville gate after a downpour? If so, you’ll be happy to know that Ms. Sullivan’s A.P. Environmental Science students have recently been busy digging out bucketloads of clay and soil to make a rain garden.
What, exactly, is a rain garden, and how will it prevent flooding? Kaleb Conger, one of the students behind this project, said, “A rain garden is a natural way of removing water from the surface and putting it back into the ground without using drains and pumping it into Lake Pontchartrain. It’s made up of a layer of gravel, a layer of dirt, and native plants that absorb lots of water. Rain gardens help with reducing flooding and runoff in areas where rainfall doesn’t absorb into the ground very well.”
So, how does it work? The depth that the garden is dug increases the volume of water that it can put back into the ground. Conger explains, “Most gardens are around 18″ deep, which allows for a layer of gravel and a layer of absorbent soil for the water to seep into. Since gravel has very large particles, water passes through very easily and reaches deeper soil much more quickly than it would if there were no garden there. A shallow garden would absorb very little water, while a deeper garden can absorb much more.”
So, where is the best place to put a rain garden? The area chosen on campus was selected due to its frequent flooding whenever there is a heavy rain. Students hope that the new rain garden will also help to reduce erosion of the soil in that area by keeping it hydrated and firm instead of dry and dusty. Flood-prone areas are good candidates for rain gardens, as the gardens can help absorb the water faster.
If you’re interested in installing your own rain garden, what plants should go into a rain garden? Ms. Sullivan’s students chose many different native Louisiana plants because they are already part of our ecosystem and will attract local pollinators. Among the plants included in Lusher’s new rain garden are swamp milkweed, creek sedge, blue wood sedge, blue Lobelia, frog fruit, cutleaf coneflower, swamp lily, blue mistflower, seashore mallow, rattlesnake plant, and pink muhly grass.
The rain garden has given Lusher students an opportunity to work together across grade levels, as well as to get outside in a year when most field trips have been canceled. “Most of the people working on the garden throughout the day are a few APES students, plus Mrs. Sullivan,” Conger said, “but we’ve had plenty of people not in the class and in different grades helping out during lunch and after school, including Coach Kugler.”
“Environmental sustainability was a project-based class that involved being conscious of one’s choices and finding sustainable ways to live your life,” Conger said. “APES involves topics such as water, soil, plant life, ecosystems, and sustainability. All of these are aspects of the rain garden, as it takes surface water and absorbs it into the soil, using native plants that are already part of the ecosystems we have in our local environment. This is all done in a sustainable way that doesn’t use extra resources and has little to no carbon footprint when compared to all the infrastructure that is required to drain and pump water elsewhere.”
This newest improvement to Lusher’s Freret campus began as an idea Conger had that morphed into a group project in environmental sustainability last year, but students were never able to complete it due to COVID. However, AP Environmental Science still very much applies to this project. Conger continued researching and designing the garden this year, while others in the class researched the best place to put the garden. “I wanted to still get the garden done before I graduated. I reached out to Dr. Corbett and Mrs. Sullivan last semester about building it, and now we’ve gotten around to finishing it.”
