What can one person do about climate change?This Waltham, Massachusetts-based outdoor environmental education program is for students of all ages. With an unique 8-unit curriculum and fun, engaging activities, we 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—to increase biodiversity, pollinators, and wildlife habitat.
______________________________ Please read this! Doug Tallamy. "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 plants 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. Waltham YMCA Environmental Entrepreneurship Program (YEEP) The YEEP PROGRAM, a career-readiness, environmental-enrichment program will launched on March 30, 2017. The Waltham YMCA and MS4B are partnering to offer this afterschool and summer program that teaches teens business skills and ecosystems gardening techniques.
The teens will use their training to establish a specialty gardening service where in spring and summer they will sell and install native ferns, wildflowers, shrubs, and grasses on the properties of residents, businesses, and other organizations throughout Waltham. MS4B plants only natives because native plants are essential for supporting the biodiversity necessary for human society and for restoring wildlife habitat. Contact us 781-209-0052. |
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Sponsors so far...
Watertown Savings Bank, Foundation for MetroWest, Sean Greenhow, Waltham Cultural Council, RTN Digital Credit Union, A. Russo and Sons, Russell's Garden Center, City of Waltham.
The Waltham Y Environmental Entrepreneurship Program (YEEP) received a grant from the Foundation of MetroWest Youth in Philanthropy (YIP) Program on February 3, 2017. Students in the YIP program are in the back row. In the front row, from left to right, are MS4B Co-Creator and Program Leader Jean Devine; Seth Lucas, Operations Manager for the Waltham and Oak Square YMCAs; and MS4B Director Barbara Passero.
