By Mary Reid Barrow

Photos by Emily Lomauro

A young bald cypress grows strong and healthy in the middle of the yard at Seatack Elementary School An Achievable Dream Academy.

The tree is representative of all the trees that recently have been planted to soak up water that used to bog down the school surroundings after heavy rains.

The cypress, and four others, along with other tree species are a testament to gifted resource teacher Marie Culver’s leadership. She’s a one-woman powerhouse for the environment and getting kids away from screens and phones and back to nature.

Marie, also Seatack’s LRNow Pearl School liaison for almost 16 years, led the way to slowing flooding in the low lying school behind Owls Creek. In the process many students learned about the ability of tree roots to soak up water.

“One, two, three, four, five bald cypress—they are the heroes,” Marie said.

She involved the city’s landscape department and the city arborist in leading workshops for students about trees. In turn, they helped find trees for the school, like cypress, that are especially good at slowing flooding. The school also installed 13 rain barrels around the building.

The fourth graders study watershed education, Marie said, and what better place than Seatack’s location to combat nature deficient disorders. They not only have Owls Creek right behind, but they have the special plus of an osprey nest also behind the school where a pair has returned every year for almost two decades. They also have Marie Culver.

Marie’s tree planting crusade was not the beginning of her environmental efforts. More than 15 years ago, she began with six raised beds for students to learn about growing vegetables. Now there are 28 and every grade cares for at least two of them. Fruit trees, berries, grapes and figs grow all around the edges of the garden.

Daily throughout the year, Marie convenes the Seatack Garden Breakfast Club in the garden. Club members eat breakfast, tend the garden and harvest ripe vegetables that the cafeteria uses in school menus that week. Eco-Heroes, another group of students meet twice a week in the garden after school.

“I call them all ‘superheroes for the environment,’” Marie said.

Marie involves the Water and Weeding Wednesday group–students and their families as well as community members–every week in summer to care for the gardens until students are back in school.

Marie’s efforts pay off in so many way, such as something small and unusual like a crop of edible oyster mushrooms that took to growing on tree stumps that are used in a seating circle.

Or something big, like the highlight of the school year in 2019. For the Something in the Water Festival, Pharrell, a Seatack alumni, visited the school and added a Little Free Library outside the garden gate to the community garden project.

A delightfully creative “statue” of Pharrell, made from old automobile parts by a friend of Marie’s, oversees the garden.

“The children call it their scarecrow,” Marie said.

Concern for the environment doesn’t stop at the doors of the school. A huge aquarium with a Pearl School flag hanging above is one of the first things you see as you enter the building. Various species of lifelike sea turtles, made from plastic and other trash by students, hang from the cafeteria ceiling.

A trip to Marie’s classroom is “like taking a field trip,” said Emily Lomauro. LRNow’s Pearl School Manager. Among displays of shells and other fun things to look is the prime attraction, Otis the Trash Talking Octopus, another critter made by students.

Otis attracted the attention of children’s author Gina Girodano who wrote a book about problems that plastic and trash pollution create for the ocean and its creatures.

Now Otis the Trash Talking Octopus is spreading Marie’s word to student superheroes far and wide.

“Otis the Trash Talking Octopus” by Gina Giordano is available on Amazon.

Contact Emily Lomauro for information on LNOW Pearl Schools or becoming a Pearl School: EmilyL@lrnow.org