NNewsSpring 2003 5_14 - Keep America Beautiful

KEEP INDIANAPOLIS BEAUTIFUL HELPS TRANSFORM URBAN SCHOOL
Keep Indianapolis Beautiful involved hundreds of volunteers in the transformation of Cold
Spring Academy, an urban public school in its community serving kindergarten through
eighth grade students with diverse economic and social backgrounds. The school sits on 39
acres of rolling land and formerly degraded woodlands slightly west of downtown Indianapolis.
The site is one of only a few remaining landscape designs in Indiana by noted naturalist
landscape architect, Jens Jensen, dating back to 1911. Sadly, the grounds had been ignored
for nearly 60 years. Thirteen acres of forest had become overrun and degraded by exotic
honeysuckle, privet, and Oriental bittersweet, which prevented native plants and healthy
habitat from flourishing. The school asked Keep Indianapolis Beautiful to help restore the land
as closely as possible to the original Jensen design, while also creating an outdoor classroom
for its student body. The work began in the fall of 2001 and provided the opportunity for the
students and staff to reclaim and restore the property surrounding their school.
Teachers, students, and volunteers spent weeks pulling out brush and piling it into large
40-cubic-yard dumpsters. Limbs were mulched for proposed nature trails throughout the
woods. In the process, 100-year-old stone footbridge was uncovered, having been buried by
the honeysuckle. Students unloaded 1,400 small saplings, and volunteers from three colleges,
six middle/high schools, corporations and businesses, parents and grandparents, and professional/resource
personnel joined the students and staff to take part in the massive business
of planting the small trees.
Several miles of paths were cut into the woods and volunteers built 12 picnic tables
and stained them, finished a dock, and built and installed 30 bird boxes and nesting platforms
throughout the grounds. Two large butterfly gardens, a medicinal garden and an herb garden
with wildflowers were planted as well. Bulbs were planted at all entrances to the school, and
wildlife-attracting shrubs were planted around the dock to encourage more wildlife.
Last spring, hundreds of volunteers helped the school plant 63 more large trees with
beaver wrap, 115 more shrubs, 35 flats of annuals, and 150 more perennials. This time students
planted a vegetable garden, created an archeological dig, built two eight-foot bird blinds in the
woods, constructed three eight-foot raised beds, built a tracking station, and installed a limestone
amphitheater into a hillside following Jens Jensen’s theme of using council rings in his
designs. The school curriculum now incorporates the outdoor classroom, and classes choose
their area to maintain. Students harvest the produce from their vegetable garden, have class
in their hidden Jensen council ring or near the various waterfalls on their property, and enjoy
the gardens and butterflies from their classroom windows.
INDIANAPOLIS,
INDIANA
Students of Cold Spring Academy cleaning and
planting their outdoor classrooms and gardens.
KEEP ISLIP CLEAN CONCLUDES RECORD-BREAKING CARD RECYCLING DRIVE
In its 10th year of collecting card covers for reuse and recycling, Keep Islip Clean (KIC)
announces that it has broken last year’s record by collecting 353,000 cards at the KIC office for
shipping to St. Jude’s Ranch for Children in Boulder City, Nevada. Islip town residents, businesses
and schools were involved in this annual effort, which enables thousands of pounds
of waste to be eliminated from the town’s waste stream. According to KIC Director Nora
Detweiler, cards are brought in from across the community – from schools to town government
offices. KeySpan provides support for shipping and handling of the thousands of pounds of
cards collected. KIC is looking to another successful drive in 2004, according to Detweiler.
Local businesses, town government leaders and
students support a record-breaking recycling effort
in the Islip community.
ISLIP,
NEW YORK
Community-Based Solutions Meet Technology
THREE APPROACHES
Keep Iowa Beautiful Litter Assessment
ne Keep Iowa Beautiful (KIB)
goal over the next 3-5 years is
Oto reduce the volume of littering
in Iowa by 50%. Partnering with the
Iowa Department of Transportation
recently, KIB identified a total of
$13.5 million of public funds were
spent on litter-related costs in Iowa.
For its 2001 Roadside Litter
Characterization Study, KIB identified
a unique and effective integration of
technology to help assess the state’s
litter issue.
Sue Smith, KAB’s director of
education, reports that Gerry Schnepf,
KIB’s executive director, utilized three
corporations/agencies to develop Iowa
data on the types of litter, sources
of litter and Iowans’ litter-related
opinions: Barker Lemar Engineering
Consultants, Franklin Associates Ltd.,
and the Iowa DOT.
Barker Lemar offered this
description of the technology customized
for KIB to conduct a physical
assessment of litter along Iowa
roadways ...“We wrote an interface
for users to collect data with tablet
PCs that was related to GIS/GPS
tracking technology. Some data was
collected on hard copy too”. As an
environmental engineering firm
working with landfill sites and
underground tank removal, Barker
Lemar was able to translate KIB’s
need for detail into a workable, user
friendly tool to analyze litter conditions.
Franklin Associates conducted
a survey of costs for federal, state
and local litter control as well as a
review of legislation in Iowa and
surrounding states. Iowa DOT conducted
a direct mail survey of Iowans
asking about three litter-related
topics: litter and littering along
Iowa roadways; littering behaviors;
and, litter and dumping in local
communities.
Each aspect of this two-year effort
was invaluable, and clarified or emphasized
need for future action. Next
steps? Create programs to reduce litter
and use this model to measure KIB’s
effectiveness over the next several
years. For additional information,
contact KIB’s Gerry Schnepf
(www.keepiowabeautiful.com).
(continued on page 14)
keep america beautiful — NETWORK NEWS — spring 2003 page 13