Fifth grade students in the Gifted and Talented (GT) program at Nichols Sawmill Elementary are working on a project to help the environment and needy families in the area through rainwater conservation.

The project, titled “Project RAIN,” stands for “Recycling An Important Necessity.”

At left, Fifth grade students in Cherrie Edwards’ Gifted and Talented class at Nicholas Sawmill Elementary stand near the future site of a garden behind the school. The students are raising money to purchase a rain water conservation tank for the Helping Hands Community Garden that will help benefit needy families in the area.

Photo by Holly Dutton

“We have a lot of underwater springs and water in Texas and they are being depleted,” said Nicholas Sawmill teacher Cherrie Edwards. “We may not have these sources to casually use as we do and rainwater may become way more important than we realize.”

Edwards, who teaches the GT students, said they began researching the project last year.

“They planned this project and went and looked at community gardens in September. Since that time they’ve also gone to see rainwater harvesting tanks in Montgomery and in Conroe,” she said.

The students hope to purchase a 5,000-gallon rain water conservation tank that the Helping Hands Community Garden at the Montgomery County Community Center in Magnolia will be able to use.

The produce grown in the garden is regularly given to needy families in the area.

Currently, the garden only has five-gallon water tanks for rain water conservation.

“The benefit to how much better rainwater is for gardens and vegetables, it’s huge and we didn’t know this until we did research. It’s just much healthier, much richer, much better quality produce when watered with rainwater. There are no chemicals. This will hopefully be a big benefit,” said Edwards.

So far, the group has raised $2,500, but is still working on their goal of $5,000 by holding various fundraisers.

The students have also been in contact with the Texas A&M University group AgriLife, an extension of A&M that is working with the group to help them find a solar-powered rainwater harvesting tank.

“Companies have put in rainwater harvesting tanks, but they want to use electric pumps and we want to use solar power. We’re trying to find the best company that does this. Here on the gulf coast, people are not as aware of how necessary this is,” said Edwards.

Through the project, the students have become more aware of the issues surrounding the availability of water in Texas.

“We have learned that it helps the environment and underground rivers in Texas that have been depleted and rainwater conservation will help that,” said Houston Arledge, 10, a student in the GT class.

Their efforts have not gone unnoticed.

The Texas Water Development Board recently contacted Edwards and asked the students to apply for an award.

“It’s opening the eyes of our students and helping them realize they need to be wiser with water use and conservation,” said Edwards.

The students are also planning to put in a garden in a field behind the school that students of all grade levels will be able to use and learn from, as well as write a small book or leaflet about how to garden that each student and their family will receive.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed