The Smithsonian Institution has awarded $500 to Mid-America Science Museum to support its work with a group of students from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts (ASMSA). The participating students include: Cameryn Berryhill, a junior from Evening Shade; Chloe Kirk, a senior from Eureka Springs, Alyssandra Navarro, a senior from Hot Springs; Terrance Meinardus, a senior from Alma; and Claire Green, a junior from North Little Rock. The museum has been collaborating with Dr. Lindsey Waddell, a geoscience instructor at the School, for several months to develop a teen-designed and -led project addressing an environmental issue of concern to them.
On January 26, 2021, the teens presented their plan to help combat the issue of invasive plants in Hot Springs National Park by cultivating a garden comprised of native flora to support and attract pollinating insects to Smithsonian officials. The Smithsonian award to the museum will support the students' action plan to design and install a native pollinator garden for the ASMSA campus. The teens have six months to execute their project, and to send a short video about what they did with the funding to the Smithsonian.
As an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution since 2005, Mid-America Science Museum is able to collaborate on unique educational projects like this one as a benefit of its affiliation. In 2019, the Smithsonian recruited Mid-America Science Museum to be part of its National Earth Optimism Teen Conversations Project. This Smithsonian project was created to bring teens together from all parts of the country to learn about and discuss their concerns about the environment.
The Smithsonian’s Earth Optimism initiative seeks to illuminate and magnify the positive, hopeful ways that individuals and communities are addressing the climate crisis. Because of the pandemic, the National Earth Optimism Teen Conversations Project had to be conducted virtually. Students were invited to attend monthly conversations on Zoom with their peers across the United States, Smithsonian scientists, and other environmental experts. The Smithsonian’s teen collaborators suggested topics, recruited speakers, designed promotional materials and led discussions on topics such as reducing the use of plastic, environmental justice, and food security.
Concurrent with the national conversations, teen teams were working with local mentors including Mid-America Science Museum and Virginia McDaniel of the United States Forestry Service to articulate their environmental concerns specific to Hot Springs National Park and to formulate an action plan to address one of these issues.
“I met with the students for an initial brainstorming session to discuss what issues they were passionate about,” explains Casey Wylie, Director of Education at Mid-America Science Museum. “One of the students had just worked on a community butterfly garden in her hometown over the summer, which inspired her interest in learning more about native plants and preserving pollinator populations.”
The students are part of the Research in the Park program at ASMSA, a service-learning capstone course through which students design and carry out scientific research projects related to the natural resources in the national park. Upon visiting the Museum’s garden, students were surprised to find native species they had not seen before because they are not widely available commercially.
“They met with Virginia McDaniel with the U.S. Forestry Service who had helped with designing the Mid-America Science Museum garden, and she gave the group an inspiring presentation about the importance of choosing native landscape plants in terms of the ecological benefits these plants can provide that the non-native plants more commonly used in landscaping cannot,” notes Dr. Waddell. “With this new perspective, the students began designing a native butterfly garden for the ASMSA campus and actually installed the first few plants sourced from a native plant nursery this fall.”
For their presentation, the Arkansas students joined their peers from nine cities across the United States: Miami, FL; Anchorage, AK; Albuquerque, NM; Lowell, MA; Telluride, CO; Cody, WY; Wilmington, NC; and Bend, OR. The students’ projects were judged by a Smithsonian-designed jury of its staff, teen activists, and environmental leaders. Students were asked to address the reasons and science behind their proposal, to present a budget, and to discuss the ways they would evaluate and scale their idea if successful.
"We were so impressed with the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the students' action plan," said Jennifer Brundage and Brian Coyle, the project's directors at the Smithsonian Institution. "Their research and proposal revealed a deep understanding not only of their physical environment, but of their community needs as well."
The Smithsonian will offer a paid internship to a teen from one of these 9 partner communities in Spring 2021, to track progress on all of the action plans over the next six months, and to promote their progress through blogs and social media posts.
“Teens are uniquely positioned to be leaders in environmental action given the threats to their future and their fearless and optimistic approach to problem-solving,” said Brundage and Coyle. “Through its Affiliate partners, the Smithsonian is excited by this opportunity to empower students to be the transformational change-makers and environmental leaders we know they are. We are deeply invested in their success."