Building a Rain Garden at McDougle Middle School – a video

Enjoy these videos produced by Cara Biasucci and Friends of Bolin Creek.  The first two tell the story about kids getting involved with their school, McDougle Middle School, planting a rain garden and installing a cistern.  Read more about rain gardens or maybe even build one.

McDougle Middle School Rain Garden

Water Harvesting at McDougle:  Students assisted NC State professionals to install a cistern to capture rain water from the gym roof to irrigate the new garden plants.

Watch these stories of the creation of a rain garden under the talented direction of Cara Biasucci, and learn about what rain gardens do for water quality and our environment.

The Rain Garden project was conceived by Randy Dodd, Environmental Planner for the Town of Carrboro, as a demonstration to help students and the public understand the benefits of rain gardens and rainwater harvesting.  The Town collaborated with Friends of Bolin Creek, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, and North Carolina State University (NCSU) on the grant proposal which was funded by EPA through the North Carolina Division of Water Quality.

NCSU designed the rain garden and rainwater harvesting system, supervised the installation, and coordinated with Friends of Bolin Creek to provide an outdoor day of instruction for eighth grade students at McDougle Middle School which included planting the rain garden and installing the cistern. In addition, Friends of Bolin Creek incorporated storm water classroom activities into Leigh Aultman’s 8th grade class water resources curriculum, and helped water and mulch the garden to get the plants established. Over 100 students at the school participated in the project.

You are invited to forward this announcement or create this link on your website.  Our desire is for these video stories to inspire us to make many more rain gardens to contain rainwater on site to protect the water quality of our creeks.