Meadowscaping for Biodiversity

Meadowscaping for Biodiversity (MS4B)

MS4B is project-based STEAM-learning outdoor environmental enrichment and employment program. MS4B offers two types of programs.

Meadow Clubs and Camps

Specialty summer camps and after-school programs
Youth age 7 - 14 learn about biodiver-sity, ecology, and earth stewardship
Repurpose lawn into pollinator patches and meadows
Native plants, shrubs, and grasses...and bees and butterflies

The Youth Environmental Entrepreneurship Program (YEEP)

Teens age 15 - 19
Two groups -- Cambridge and Waltham
Teens learn about gardening with native plants as well as how to create and run a business
College intern team leaders/mentors guide the youth through the operation of a specialty service business
Youth sell and install native plants for residential and business customers
Youth receive an hourly wage during summer employment
Youth gain 21st Century career-readiness skills

Both MS4B program areas emphasize hands-on, project-based learning in the great outdoors! And we strive to empower participants to become stewards of the Earth and to take charge of their futures.

What can one person do about climate change?

Waltham, Massachusetts-based outdoor environmental education program for students of all ages.

8-unit curriculum and fun, engaging activities
Educate citizen scientists and stewards of the Earth to try to resolve challenges to the environment and human society.
Participants repurpose monocultural turf lawn into meadows--productive, attractive ecosystems gardens with native flowers, shrubs, and grasses
Increase biodiversity, pollinator and wildlife habitat

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2018 Plant Catalog

SUMMER 2018 Youth Environmental Entrepreneurship Program in Cambridge and Waltham

Teens in Cambridge and Waltham have the opportunity to LEARN, EARN, and RETURN this summer in the second year of the YEEP Program.

THE BUSINESS OF SAVING NATURE

Buy beautiful, hardy, drought-tolerant perennial native plants from teens to help them gain 21st century career-readiness skills and work experience. You'll also increase biodiversity in your backyard and build resilience in your community.

Youth Install Native-Plant Pollinator Patches and Meadows 2017

Meadowscaping team after just finishing a new meadow at Phyllis Norwood's home in Woburn, MA. Phyllis is shown on left.

Why Native Plants?
Doug Tallamy's "Gardening for Life."

Hardy, Drought-Tolerant
Native Plants

Native plants were growing in this area before Europeans brought other plants here. Native insects evolved with these plants and can subsist only on those specific indigenous flowers, grasses, shrubs, and trees.

Ornamental and invasive plant s are popular with gardeners but they detract from the biodiversity of an area by replacing local plants, which are essential to building biodiversity in ecosystems. Invasive plants grow rapidly in new areas because the changing climate may benefit them more and local animals can't subsist on them.