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Summer is here, and we're at the Mastery School of Hawken's Native Plant Sale in University Circle for an Eco Bite with Nick Fletcher. Nick is a high school Latin teacher who started one of the most practical environmental education projects around - the Hawken Native Plant Society. Along with his colleague Claudia Tausz and students of all grade levels, Nick oversees the cultivation of more than 230 plant species native to Northeast Ohio. The plants help improve habitat across three campuses and are also donated to nonprofit partners for restoration efforts. Plant sales are held at the Mastery School campus all summer, with proceeds benefiting this work.

This experiential learning grew out of COVID, when Nick took his Latin classes outdoors and began observing nature on campus. This led him to help plant gardens at his daughter's school and then grow a few seedlings on campus. Nick never grew anything until then, and today, he oversees a registered nursery with hundreds of thriving plants, plus the challenges that come with it, like keeping a greenhouse full of seedlings alive through summer heat. Nick shares how students across grade levels get involved through classes, garden club, and hands-on field days where kids research a plant, collect and sort seeds, pot seedlings, and plant new native gardens.

Nick believes in making space for other species besides our own, and he and his students see the payoff: native bees showing up, insect life returning, and host plants doing their job.

Email Nick - nativeplants@hawken.edu

Learn More: Hawken Native Plant Society and Sales, Hawken Native Gardens,

The Nature of Oaks by Douglas Tallamy

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