{"id":18282,"date":"2016-06-20T00:02:17","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T04:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=18282"},"modified":"2016-06-20T11:42:10","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T15:42:10","slug":"students-celebrate-pollinators-by-spreading-bee-and-butterfly-habitat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2016\/06\/students-celebrate-pollinators-by-spreading-bee-and-butterfly-habitat\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Celebrate Pollinators by Spreading Bee and Butterfly Habitat"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Beyond Pesticides June 20, 2016<\/em>) As the end of the school year approaches, two first grade classrooms at local District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) got to learn about the importance of pollinators firsthand when DC-based nonprofit Beyond Pesticides visited their school. In a lead up to National Pollinator Week, Beyond Pesticides teamed up with owner and founder of The Bees Waggle<\/a>, Jessica Goldstrohm, to provide a fun, hands-on lesson about pollination, and why it is important to our food system. Students were given a lesson on biodiversity, soil health, and the negative effects of pesticides on pollinators before building some pollinator-friendly habitat for their schools and homes.<\/p>\n

The day of learning kicked off at Brightwood Education Campus, located in Northwest DC, where students listened to a lesson developed by Ms. Goldstrohm, who donned a set of bee wings for the event. After receiving some background on the role of pollinators in our food system, the children participated in several hands on activities that reiterated the key points within the curriculum. Six volunteers stepped to the front of the class to demonstrate the interconnectedness of all living organisms by participating in a biodiversity web simulation. Here, the scholars learned that if one organism in a food system starts to take more than its fair share of resources, the rest of the web find itself out of balance. At the end of the lesson, students each crafted their own small \u201cbee hotel\u201d before heading outside to plant a butterfly box in their garden.<\/p>\n\n\t\t