Instilling Goodness Elementary School Visits Pinoleville

Last week more than 20 students, parents and staff from the Instilling Goodness Elementary School outside of Ukiah visited the Pinoleville Pomo Nation for a day of science education. The daylong event included students from the girls school between fourth and sixth grades as they toured throughout the Pinoleville Pomo Nation garden, restoration nursery, Head Start garden and bioswale. And that’s before we wrapped the day up with a tour of one of our prototype homes as well as some education in sustainability.

The Instilling Goodness Elementary School tour kicked off in our garden where the students learned about the different varieties of fruits and vegetables we provide for our Head Start families as part of Harvest Fridays. After the kids sampled our strawberries and other goodies, we learned about creek restoration and how our department utilizes native plants in our projects. A tour of the Head Start garden followed that and gave the students another chance to check out fresh, organic vegetables like tomatoes, peppers and green beans. Things finished up with a tour of the Head Start bioswale, which allowed us to show the restoration plants we discussed earlier in action. The students were well prepared as each had done some research before the field trip to define what a bioswale is.

Our field trip concluded with some educational sessions at the Prototype Home where students were exposed to passive solar design, solar energy, rainwater catchment, grey water systems and more. The grey water demonstration was a wonderful success as we taught the students about the three kinds of water, the different types of grey water systems and capped it off with a demonstration. If you would like to view our greywater systems slideshow, click this link. You can view all the handouts we provided the students via our Printables section.

Enjoy the video above and slideshow below of the Instilling Goodness Elementary School students’ visit to PPN shot and edited by our own Water Quality Specialist and media guru Ilena.

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