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May 9, 2019This Project is All the Buzz; Students Save Bees to Earn A’s
The latest project at the Capital Region Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) east campus certainly has students and faculty abuzz.
Students in the first-year, innovative high school-college program are saving bees in Watervliet and will also spread the message globally of the importance of bees.
“It’s a good project because if we don’t do something about the problem, we are going to die,” P-TECH freshman Phoenix Tobin of Watervliet said bluntly.
Indeed, a massive decline in bees (42 percent in 2015 alone) is putting society at risk, especially when you consider that one out of every three mouthfuls of food in the American diet is, in some way, a product of honeybee pollination, the Natural Resource Defense Council reported.
“We are looking at the endangerment of bees and the reasons – humans, pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, all of that,” said Adonis Cyrus, who also attends P-TECH from Watervliet High School.
But the research is only one part of the project, said teacher Dharini Adhvaryo.
Advocacy and action are next.
Students will be creating a garden on the campus that is friendly to bees.
“We are going to plant flowers, very native flowers, that will help bees right here,” Cyrus said.
Students will also be creating short public service announcements (PSAs) about the bee dilemma that offers tips on how to save the population – whether it’s through using natural herbicides or not using insecticides. Those videos will eventually be posted to YouTube and shared through social media.
“I am planning to advocate for more people planting flowers and habitats,” Tobin said.
Recalling how she learned about terrace gardening in the fourth grade and how she brought that lesson home and created her own terrace gardens, Adharyo said she hopes the project does more than educate the students.
“I am hopeful that some of them get exposed to gardening and the idea of working with their hands in the first and it stays with them because it’s a useful skill they can have throughout their life,” she said.
