About the Programs
Inspired by a generational disconnect with Nature, our goal is to provide Mississippi high school students opportunities to meaningfully reconnect…
- With the ecosystems that matter
- Using scientific and experiential perspectives to expand their minds
- By providing a service to their communities
- To inspire the next generation of wetland stewards (and beyond)
Plan-It Dunes is an EPA grant-funded program that aims to provide high schools in the Gulf Coast & southeastern U.S. with the supplies and expertise to restore native dune habitat. Participating schools will be provided with dune plants for students to grow, given complementary lesson plans to use in-school, and will be taken on restoration planting field trips to local beaches.
Teacher Workshops
The program is designed with teacher input, flexible to semester and full year classes ranging from 5 to 25 students. Teachers are introduced to the program and lesson activities. Teachers are instructed on carrying out lessons. Teachers supervise day-to-day aspects of research projects, directed by project coordinator.
Greenhouses
Greenhouses and/or outdoor nurseries have been built on each high school campus. Students care for marsh plants that are ultimately used in a living shoreline restoration (See Living Shorelines Program: https://coastal.msstate.edu/ccr-sub-programs) and in student group research projects.
Research Projects
Students are guided in design of their own small group research projects, using marsh plants from their greenhouses. Students are responsible for plant care, formulating a proper hypothesis, data collection, analyses, and drawing reasonable conclusions. Project coordinator guides each of these steps, and teachers supervise of day-to-day aspects.
Restoration
Students conduct a living shoreline restoration using marsh plants from their greenhouses. Class restorations have a measurable benefit to their communities and provide students a direct link to their local environment, one step towards another generation of wetland stewards.
Partners:
