Lower School Marks Earth Day with Garden Celebration

Packer’s Pre and Lower School chose the morning of Thursday April 24 to celebrate Earth Day at an assembly in the Packer Garden.

Andrea Kelly, Head of the Lower School, welcomed the assembled Lower School students and thanked them for being “the best recyclers” and for “reminding us all to re-use” materials and resources at school.

Children sang songs, including 'The Earth is our Mother', 'This Land is Our Land', and a song about global warming called 'Be Cool'.

“Packer Garden” T-shirts, worn by dozens of teachers and students beginning in April, are a reminder that Packer’s Garden has been the focus, inspiration, and beneficiary of this spring’s Lower School Earth Day efforts. The two designs were created by students, a 4th grader and a junior in the Upper School.

In recognition of this summer’s refurbishment of the Garden, including new planting, landscaping, and more waste/recycling receptacles, the Garden was officially certified in the fall of 2007 as a Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. Places that are certified must have a source of water, a source of food, places to raise young, and places to seek cover.

Lower School teachers Deb McDermott P'05, P'07 and Jeanette Selles spearheaded the certification. “Our mission on the Environment Committee is to get the children to develop a love of the nature that is around them,” said Ms. Selles. “We thought, ‘what better place for the children to look than right in their own backyard. There is nature—right here, before their eyes.”

Since the Garden has existed for many generations, several alumni also submitted reflections of their favorite memories and special moments in the Garden. The words accompanied a display of drawings and paintings by Lower School students in Packer’s front hall.

One alum from the Class of 1998 wrote, “The little I know about plants, I learned from the Packer Garden, which — at least in my day — was a kind of Eden of weird fruit, a treasure of smelly, lumpy, and odd-looking flora.”

Another, from the Class of 1931, wrote: “How beautiful the Garden was — warm sun filtering through bare branches of winter trees and icy patches of leftover snow glistening as they melted. We walked, we ran, we skipped around the circular path, laughing with pure joy, drinking in the welcome warmth and marveling at the unexpected magic.”