A Natural Habitat Makeover
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A Natural Habitat Makeover

Members of the Spring Hill Elementary School Naturalists Club work on creating outdoor classroom space.

Last Friday afternoon, as the young members of the Spring Hill Elementary School Naturalists Club surveyed the overgrown wooded area behind their school adjacent to the grass playing fields maintained by McLean Youth Soccer (MYS), there was no limit to their vision.

“We could build a pool over there,” said fourth grader Andy Berkin, 10, pointing to a small shaded area where storm water runoff had collected in a murky puddle.

“And we could put a hammock over there,” chimed in fifth grader Ava Shomaker, 11, pointing to two trees growing on of a grassy incline.

Spring Hill Elementary School teacher and Naturalist Club leader Alison Bauer gently reminded her enthusiastic Naturalists of their mission.

“Remember guys, everything here is supposed to be natural — so natural that people walking by here won’t even realize that we’ve done something to it — that’s the whole point,” said Bauer.

Ava Shomaker remained unfazed.

“Well then we can make the hammock out of the vines we take down,” she said. Her eyes grew wide with excitement as the genius of her idea dawned on her even further. “Then we’d be recycling our vines to make a natural hammock.”

Such is a typical monthly meeting of the Spring Hill Naturalists Club, which is in its fourth year of operation.

“The whole reason I have this club is so we can do a project like this,” said Bauer, gesturing toward the small plot of overgrown foliage that serves as a collection area for storm water runoff from the school.

THE FIRST FEW YEARS of the Naturalists Club were devoted to creating the National Wildlife Federation Certified Habitat that currently occupies the courtyard of the school. Bauer said she started to look for a new workspace once it became clear that the students were really just doing routine maintenance on the courtyard site. She discovered the bedraggled storm water runoff plot behind the school and promptly called the office of Dranesville District Supervisor Joan DuBois to inquire about permission to use the site, which belongs to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, McLean Youth Soccer and the McLean Hamlet residential community.

“She called me over the winter and I talked to MYS, the Board of Supervisors and McLean Hamlet, and then we had our storm water management people come in and look at it, and everyone said go for it,” said Catherine Hanes, a legislative aide in DuBois’ office. “We even included the school maintenance crews in the process, so we really had a little of everyone involved.”

THE YOUNG NATURALISTS first convened at the site of their new project in February, and have been making plans to re-plant, re-vamp and restore the area since then. The group meets once a month, but Bauer said the members have already called for more meetings. After the site is cleaned up, a local Boy Scout will install some wooden benches for his Eagle Scout project. Bauer hopes the end result will be a natural classroom of sorts for the students at Spring Hill.

“The first graders have to look under logs and find the species living there, and they never really had a place to do that before,” said Bauer.

The Naturalists Club is open to students in grades 2-6, and Bauer said there are currently around 12 members in the club. Fifth grader John Gorman, 11, said he joined because he likes “nature and helping out.”

“I like everything we’ve done but I think my favorite was our last stream cleanup because I really like the water,” he said. “We found this rusty pipe and I was wearing a white shirt so I got all these red stains all over it, but it was fun. I think we had over 50lbs. of garbage in a mile length of stream.”

John already has some definite ideas about what should be done with their new space.

“I think we should make a pond, and I think we should plant some more trees to make some shade,” he said.