In spring 2023 the Conservation Commission worked with Connecticut College Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment Service Learning students. The Commission provided the students with projects to help them learn project management with a real-life conservation and community based focus. The links provide connections to summaries of the projects. Contact the Conservation Commission for more information.  These projects include:

• Native Plant Project

  This group of GNCE students created an accessible and informative website on local native plants and held a native plant face painting booth at the Groton Earth Day Expo. The goals of this project were to inform the general public on why landscaping with native plants is necessary, to offer suggestions for planning a sustainable and aesthetically-pleasing yard, and above all, to compile resources on where and how to purchase native plants locally.

  

   

  It was important to the team that their information would be delivered in a memorable and entertaining way because they believed if people tied a good experience to learning about native plants, they would retain that positive association and be more likely to start their own journey of planting natives. To this end, had a booth at the inaugural Groton Earth Day Expo where they offered native plant face painting and promoted their website with detailed native plant guidance.
  
  

  The website highlights common natives and keystone species, provides a guide to planting with these natives, and encourages viewers to support local nurseries. On this website, we included the main reasons one should consider planting Indigenous plants, as well as what flowers, trees, and shrubs look good together. More information can be found by following this link or scanning the QR code!
  
  

• Earth Day Expo Fair

  
  
  This group of GNCE students assisted in the preparation and organization of the Earth Day Expo on April 22, 2023 at the Groton Public Library. This year’s Expo was the first annual fair in Groton, so much of the work their group did was a trial for the future. Specific tasks performed included:

  • Documentation of the event.
  • Social media management.
  • Creation of the Groton Conservation Commission (GCC) brochure.

  Throughout this project, the team advertised the fair to the public and promoted each of the vendors through their social media accounts. In addition, their goal was to create a framework for using social media to market future fairs and build up a platform for people to interact with regularly.
  

  Previous to the event the team messaged vendors on Instagram asking them if they wanted to be featured and if they could send a few photos and a short paragraph with information they wanted the public to know about their company. They posted one or two vendors each day and eventually featured fifteen vendors.

  The day of the event, they walked around the fair periodically to ask the public and many vendors questions about sustainability and how they were liking the fair. They posted a handful of their interviews on the social media accounts to display why sustainability is so important to so many people and to further promote the fair.
  

  The team recommends using the social media platforms in future events to interact with the vendors prior to and during the event. It was really fun talking to them and getting to learn more about their journey, and people seemed to enjoy getting to know the faces behind the posts.

• Bakers Cove Management Plan

  The Town of Groton Conservation Commission prepared and adopted a Stewardship Plan for the town-owned Birch Plain Creek Area open space. The plan exists to better inform current and future management projects carried out by the Town, the Bakers Cove Watershed Committee, the City of Groton, and other associated stakeholders.
  
  
  

  This group of GNCE students was tasked with providing a trial execution and real-life implementation of the plan’s management outline.
  

  The group decided to organize a trash cleanup as an example of a volunteer stewardship effort. They chose an area at the entrance of the Sassacus Nature Preserve that had a large amount of dumping on the outskirts of the Electric Boat parking lot. On a rainy April day, they were able to clear trash from a section of the property with the aid of their Goodwin-Niering classmates.
  

  Suggestions for future projects include:

  • Recruitment process for project coordinator.
  • Formation of a group committed to an annual or semi-annual clean-up of the area.
  • Follow annotated map.
  • Communicate with local stakeholders.

• Resource Sheet for Invasive Plants