Care for the environment God gave us always has been a part of Catholic teaching, with the work of St. Francis of Assisi providing the most prominent example. There has been a particular emphasis on the subject since Pope Francis issued his second encyclical, “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home,” in 2015. The encyclical takes its name from a song written by St. Francis and mentions him prominently in its early stages.

The pope addresses the document to “every person on the planet” and says today’s ecological crisis is “a summons to profound interior conversion.” The encyclical’s basic theme has been summarized by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as “God created the world and entrusted it to us as a gift. Now we have the responsibility to care for and protect it and all people, who are part of creation. Protecting human dignity is strongly linked to care for creation.”

Since his ordination this year, Bishop Earl Fernandes has displayed his concern for the proper stewardship of God’s creation by presenting each parish and school of the Diocese of Columbus with a tree to be planted.

Many diocesan schools have sponsored environmentally themed programs for several years.

Members of the Environmental Club at Columbus St. Francis DeSales High School with adviser Ryan Buechner (left).     Photo courtesy St. Francis DeSales High School

The Environmental Club at Columbus St. Francis DeSales High School was founded by former DeSales teacher Ruth Seggerson and has existed for at least 15 years, said club adviser Ryan Buechner.

He said the club makes its presence known every day by taking care of trash pickup throughout the school. Through a grant from the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, the club has formed a partnership with the zoo’s Teen ECO Summit to create sustainable conservation action plans for a more eco-friendly campus.

Last spring, the club built a greenhouse that involved everyone in the school through Earth Day activities. Each homeroom grew seedlings that were planted in the greenhouse during summer.

“We’ve seen some dinky cucumbers and tomatoes so far, but that’s a start which has encouraged everyone,” Buechner said. “We planted more tomatoes, zucchini and cucumber seeds when school started in September. We’re hoping for enough of a crop that we can donate what we’ve grown to a food bank at the end of the school year.”     

The 12-by-6-foot greenhouse is 8 feet tall and located in a field between DeSales and Columbus St. Matthias School. It was built with materials purchased at a home improvement store, including plastic glass with steel and aluminum framing. 

Surrounding the greenhouse is a pollinator garden where wildflowers are grown to attract butterflies and bees. 

Last year, the club also cleaned a city park and a section of Cleveland Avenue, with the city of Columbus providing a grant for the activity. The group meets twice a month after school to check on the garden. Buechner said club members also informally keep an eye on things through the week, with one particular student watering the plants every day during a study hall.

“Club members recognize the need to give back in response to what God has given them, and they really enjoy the active service aspect of what they’re doing,” Buechner said. “They’re not just talking about social justice as a way of performing their required service hours, but they’re doing something that can be seen and in time will provide a practical example of feeding the hungry.”

London St. Patrick School’s pre-K class plants pea seeds in their recycled milk jug greenhouses.  Photo courtesy London St. PatrickSchool

Mothers of four London St. Patrick School students decided last year that because the school is on a large, rural plot, a garden and outdoor classroom would provide an excellent way to teach students to care for the ecosystem. They raised about $7,000 in cash and an equal amount of in-kind donations, collected plants to start the garden and began the work on Earth Day, April 22, 2021.

Kathleen Ries, the mother of four St. Patrick School students, said the garden is divided into a number of areas. At the entrance is a berry patch where blackberries, strawberries, raspberries and grapes are being grown, and some strawberries are being harvested. There also is a pollinator garden and a solar-powered fairy garden, a small area where grapes and other plants that ripen on vines are being grown along arch-shaped spaces in hopes that they will be cultivated for the parish festival this summer.

The largest part of the garden is a 100-foot-long space where plants and vegetables native to Ohio either are growing now or will be planted in the spring. These include potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, peas, lettuce, squash, peppers and broccoli.

There also is an early learning center where pre-kindergarten students are getting a chance to do dirt digs and have a “mud kitchen,” plus a sensory area with herbs for the students to smell, touch and taste. A compost pile, rain barrel, tool sheds, log tables and chairs also are part of the garden.

“This is a long-term project where students will be able to learn year after year,” Ries said. “Right now, the pre-kindergarten students are using it the most. They absolutely love the idea of being able to pick things like strawberries, which are blooming. They’ll also be able to harvest lettuce, peas and broccoli this fall. We’ll start a lot more plants in the spring and get the rest of the school involved. Once more plants are harvested, the hope is to have the school cafeteria use them for lunches.”

The pre-K class works in the outdoor classroom space.  Photo courtesy St. Patrick School

Ries said there are plans to form a garden club consisting of students who will keep an eye on the garden during the summer. 

While the weather is still warm enough, the garden also is being used as an outdoor classroom for art classes with teacher Alecia McCafferty, one of the four mothers who planned the garden, and for religion classes. More outdoor classes are planned for the spring.

Students named the garden St. Fiacre’s Clover Grove after a relatively obscure seventh-century Irish monk known for his expertise in growing plants and who is the patron saint of gardeners. It has an Instagram page under @st_fiacre’s_clover_grove.

Chillicothe Bishop Flaget School students at all levels are engaged in a number of projects this year that include raising butterflies and observing their life cycle, caring for school garden flowers, studying plant growth in a greenhouse, beautifying of the school campus and participating in the Ohio Energy Project’s e3 Smart program that focuses on energy savings. Photo courtesy Bishop Flaget School

Environmental awareness is a part of the Chillicothe Bishop Flaget School curriculum beginning in pre-kindergarten, said principal Laura Corcoran. Pre-K students raised butterflies inside their classroom, observed the butterflies’ life cycle and documented it by journaling the process for a month and creating diagrams of butterfly body parts. 

Fourth-graders participated in the Ohio Energy Project’s e3 Smart program, a science-based study of where energy comes from, how it’s used in our daily lives and how our own behaviors can help save money and the planet.

The students completed energy audits of their homes and the school and received equipment such as weather stripping and low-energy light bulbs to help make their homes more energy-efficient. Fourth- and fifth-graders also took part in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) project involving design challenges and planting, cultivating and caring for the school flower gardens.

The school has a greenhouse purchased with a grant from Monsanto’s Grow Rural Communities Grants. In the greenhouse, students have studied everything from plant growth to the effects of solar energy and temperature. Corcoran said students hope to grow food in the greenhouse that they can eat in the spring.

Students are building boxes for a bluebird trail on the school property that will replace boxes damaged by summer storms. Students will continue to monitor the boxes, documenting bluebird activity and making sure food is available if the birds winter in Ohio, as they have for the past few years. 

Chillicothe Bishop Flaget School students in the classroom  Photo courtesy Bishop Flaget School

Students also feed songbirds in the winter and have determined the type of food to put in the feeders to make sure they are not drawing unwanted birds or predators. In addition, each grade level at the school has adopted a section of the building or grounds where they are involved in weekly cleaning and beautification projects.

Corcoran said the students’ consistent efforts on behalf of wildlife have resulted in the school being awarded certified wildlife habitat status by the National Wildlife Federation.

Dover Tuscarawas Central Catholic Elementary School teacher Becky Sedares said there has been a pollinator garden at the school since 2019, when it was established with help from SWARM (the Sustainable Wildlife Area Restoration Movement) and the Ohio Native Plant Society.

“We installed more than 700 native plants, including asters, purple coneflowers, royal catchfly, milkweed, spiderwort and prairie grass, all to attract butterflies and other insects,” Sedares said. “All of this expanded on an annual fifth-grade project to study the life cycle of the butterfly.”

A grant from Project WILD of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources enabled Sedares to purchase items such as field microscopes, large nets, insect claspers, a rain barrel and magnifying glasses and containers so students could capture and study insects found in the garden. The students also collect kitchen waste that is placed in a compost bin.

Sedares said 37 fifth- and sixth-graders take part in classes in the garden, and about 25 are involved in an after-school environmental club that weeds and tends the space. 

The club’s efforts have resulted in changes at the school to promote environmental sustainability. These include replacing wax-coated milk cartons with recyclable plastic bottles; eliminating Styrofoam cups, instead using restaurant-style, dishwasher-safe cups; no longer selling bottled water and having students get their water in reusable glasses; ending the use of ketchup and mustard packets, using bottles instead; and eliminating plastic straws.

“Working to preserve the environment provides a great opportunity for cross-curricular learning in the areas of religion and science,” Sedares said. “It teaches both the care of God’s creation and the marvels God has made and allowed us to observe through things like the life cycle of the monarch butterfly, its migration patterns, ecosystems and the symbiotic relationship among all items up and down the food chain.”

The diocesan Office of Catholic Schools said that in addition to these four schools, several others are taking part in significant efforts related to the environment. These include Columbus Our Lady of Peace, St. Joseph Montessori, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Mary German Village; Lancaster St. Bernadette and St. Mary; Portsmouth Notre Dame elementary and high schools; Dublin St. Brigid of Kildare; Grove City Our Lady of Perpetual Help; Newark Catholic High School; and Worthington St. Michael. Schools planning environmental classrooms are Columbus St. Catharine and Reynoldsburg St. Pius X.