Planting Native Trees and Shrubs with Royal Bay Secondary in Murray Pond Park, Colwood – September 28, 2023
Highlights From The Day
- 60 amazing students from Royal Bay Secondary joined us and contributed about 80 volunteer hours!
- Thank you to everyone for participating: Ms. Lemmen’s grade 11 class, Mr. Steadman’s grade 9 class, and Mr. Froese’s grade 11 class!
- Together our team:
- Planted 175 native shrubs and trees!
- Revitalized about 200 square metres of the park!
- Scroll down to see before and after photos, as well as some in-action shots!
- About a third of the students learned how to plant for the first time!
- All of the students learned about native shrub species and how to identify them.
- Students developed a sense of ownership and pride for this park that is directly behind their school.
- Our Community Investment Partner, the City of Colwood, provided direction and funding to make this activity possible!
This was our second time working in this park this year and we look forward to returning to continue our restoration work together! It was so great to be able to plant some native shrubs and trees into areas we previously cleared of invasive Scotch broom. The restoration work always continues though and there are more sections of invasive species we hope to tackle in the future. Having an important ecological zone behind their school is a really exciting opportunity for so many Royal Bay Secondary students to gain hands-on learning experience with restoration and be able to see the progress of their efforts over time.
Before & After Photos
Why Do We Do This Work?
The Greater Victoria Green Team organizes hands-on educational activities that have a positive environmental impact to empower people. Through activities such as invasive plant removals, plantings, litter cleanups and more, we are fostering connections with others and nature so that health and well-being is prioritized, lifelong environmental stewardship is promoted, and community members are enabled to take care of themselves, each other and the places they live. We all have the power to make a difference!
By being out in nature doing something positive as a team, participants:
- Develop a sense of belonging to community and place
- Have improved mental and physical health
- Connect to nature, which leads to environmentally responsible behaviour
- Learn about local environmental issues and actions they can take
- Learn the value of bringing together people to work towards a common goal
- Become leaders in their communities
- Increase confidence, resilience and perseverance
Students In Action!
Partner For This Activity
A big thank you to the City of Colwood for partnering with our charity, Green Teams of Canada and providing the financial support and direction to make this activity possible!
Thank you for recognizing the importance of collaboration in community engagement and ecological restoration! Together we are restoring habitat and creating connected, healthy and resilient communities engaged in environmental stewardship!
We are so excited to be returning to this park again. inthe future to continue this important work & remove event more invasive species! Stay tuned on our meetup page for more activities in the City of Colwood!
Our Staff
This activity was run by our Program Manager, Kaitlin Warren (far left) and our Program Coordinator, Severine Tyszewicz (far right).
Severine was hired as part of the Youth Leadership Program, intended to empower the next generation of environmentally-focused community organizing!