Three Richmond schools are being recognized for their commitment to helping butterflies, bees and other pollinators.
The David Suzuki Foundation is naming A.R. MacNeill Secondary, Matthew McNair Secondary and Daniel Woodward Elementary official Butterflyway schools at a ceremony Sunday
Anne-Marie Fenn, a teacher at Woodward, successfully applied to a two-day training course to become a “butterfly ranger” and helped build a pollinator-friendly garden in the outdoor education space at her school. She also educates her students about the importance of pollinators.
“I just believe that presenting them with all these problems, like global warming and climate change, and saying fix it … If they don’t have that deep connection to the earth and their community and their local environment, it doesn’t have the same impact.”
Now, her students plant pollinator-friendly flowers and watch the bees and butterflies come.
“Getting them out there and watching bees coming to the plants they planted, it’s like oh wow I get it,” she said. “It’s like, I did this and I can have an impact.”
In Richmond, black and yellow swallowtail butterflies are common, and so are white cabbage moths. The Woodward garden also gets the occasional painted lady, which kids often mistake for East Coast monarch butterflies.
The gardens help the insects find shelter and food, which helps humans because the bugs go on to pollinate our food crops.
The first ceremony on Sunday will happen at A.R. MacNeill at 11 a.m., where Winnie Hwo from the David Suzuki Foundation will present a plaque to the school. There will also be an Eco-Fair for parents and kids to enjoy.
Then, at 1 p.m., Hwo will present the final two plaques at Woodward.
