Garden a multifunctional tool at Brown Elementary
A labor of love grows at the back of Brown Elementary School, one of Hilliard’s earliest elementary schools.
Situated on the western fringes of the district, it is yet surrounded by two-lane roads cutting through green fields of corn and grain, an image that once defined Hilliard as an agrarian village.
Last spring, Brown Elementary School students, under the guidance of Christine Hernon, a gifted-intervention specialist at Brown Elementary, built a rain garden at the back entrance of the school building.
Her initiative led to the Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District naming Hernon as the 2022 Environmental Educator of the Year.
Sophia Koltak, 10, and Matthew Moore, 11, are both fifth-graders at Brown Elementary and among the students working this year to maintain and preserve the rain garden.
“First, we had to find a good spot (for the rain garden),” which entailed digging holes, soaking the ground and observing the best place to create the rain garden, Sophia said.
The purpose of a rain garden is to retain storm water runoff from impervious surfaces, allowing such water to be used by the planted vegetation, which is in turn released as water vapor back into the atmosphere.
Rain gardens can provide diverse planting opportunities, as Brown’s include varieties of purple cone flowers and lavender.
“We planted around the edges (of the rain garden last spring) and come out before and after lunch one or two days a week to check on the health (of the plants),” Matthew said.
The inspiration for the rain garden originated last year when work began to replace a deteriorating sidewalk between the school’s backyard playground and back entrance to the school.
The condition of the sidewalk led to an education exploration of the concept of erosion and in turn, the idea to create the rain garden, Hernon said.
Hernon collaborated with Chuck D’andrea, an innovation discovery specialist, and Kelly Kirkland, a fourthgrade teacher and gifted cluster instructor at Brown, to plan and build the rain garden.
Students in the second through fifth grades each have a hand in maintaining the rain garden.
Second-graders learn about and provide soil information, third-graders provide life cycle and butterfly information, fourth-graders provide erosion and weathering information and fifth-graders study the ecosystem.
Hernon wrote a $1,000 grant and solicited assistance from the Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District, whose staff visited the school twice before the rain garden was built.
Going forward, each new class of students will have a hand in maintaining the rain garden, as well as learning to be stewards of the environment, Hernon said.
Beyond what is provided in the grant, the Brown teachers involved in the project put in their own time and money toward its maintenance, Hernon said.