What's Happening

May 9, 2019, Adrian, Michigan – About 55 sixth-grade students from Morenci (Michigan) Middle School enjoyed a five-hour field trip May 1 at the Adrian Dominican Sisters Motherhouse, catching insects, learning about rain gardens and vernal pools, and coming to appreciate the value of water and the River Raisin watershed.

They were taking part in a new program, The River Raisin Water Festival, hosted by the Adrian Dominican Sisters and organized in collaboration with the River Raisin Institute, the River Raisin Watershed Council, and Lenawee Intermediate School District. Underwriters for the festival were Anderson Development Company, General Federation of Women’s Club, and Rotary International.

Corinne Sanders, OP, and Patricia Benson, OP, working with the planning committee, coordinated the event on the Adrian Dominican Motherhouse Campus. Students moved through a number of inside and outside learning centers, “experiencing topics that are intended to inspire us to protect, preserve, and enhance the River Raisin, its tributaries, and the land around it,” Sister Corinne said. 

Topics included Habitat Restoration, Marsh Bird Management, Macroinvertebrates, Vernal Pools, River Raisin Plant Fun, Rain Gardens, Vermicomposting (composting with worms), and Where Water Flows. 

Nathan McNett, of the Lenawee Conservation District, speaks to the students about habitat restoration.

Students and chaperones alike were quick to tell of the highlights of their experience of the Water Festival and what they learned from it. “It’s been fun going through the wild areas and learning about the bugs and flowers,” said Dea Ewald, a student. “The bugs were the most interesting – I used to be scared of them.” Her classmate, Jordan Watkins, also appreciated the bugs, especially the crayfish and dragonflies, and learned about camouflage.

Caroline Stuck, a substitute teacher at Morenci and a chaperone, learned about rain gardens and hopes to build one at home. 

Sister Pat, a Board member of the River Raisin Institute, said the Institute has held a similar program, the Lake Erie Water Festival, at the Motherhouse of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) Sisters in Monroe, Michigan, for three or four years. Sister Pat suggested expanding the program into Lenawee County. “We just wanted to have this for our students in Lenawee County,” Sister Pat said. “We feel it’s a good exposure to what’s good for the watershed and the future.”

Sister Pat and Sister Corinne worked with Brittany Leick, Program Coordinator for the River Raisin Institute, who recruited the presenters and invited school participation. Planning for the event began in October 2018.

Sister Corinne said about 45 volunteers were involved in the program, including the nine presenters and their assistants. Among the volunteers were Adrian Dominican Sisters, who accompanied the students to the learning centers throughout the campus and enjoyed the presentations with the students. 

Sister Corinne was most excited by the small groups of students who attended the presentations together. “There were 10 to 12 in each group, which gave them high quality small group experiences,” she said. “The students were very inquisitive and asked good questions.”

Feature photo: Elaine Johnson, former Permaculture Specialist for the Adrian Dominican Sisters, gives a presentation on rain gardens.

June 5, 2018, Adrian, Michigan – Rain gardens, berms and swales, Permaculture, eco-systems, zero waste, watersheds, bio-regions, planting guilds – this is the language of a two-week summer program for selected Barry University and Siena Heights University students as they explore and experience the environment and learn to work with and for nature.

Now in its second year, the Environmental Leadership Experience brought a disparate group of students to the Adrian Dominican Motherhouse May 13-27, 2018. Through team work, hands-on work, talks, meditation, and tours of local sustainability efforts, the students learn about eco-systems and the principles and practices of Permaculture, a system of learning from and working with the systems of nature in designing and implementing agriculture.

Pictured right: Sister Corinne Sanders, OP, and Sabrina Meli transfer worms and compost from the original vermicomposting container to the newly built system assembled by the Environmental Leadership Experience students.

The program is coordinated by Sister Corinne Sanders, OP, Director of the Congregation’s Sustainability Office; Elaine Johnson, Permaculture Specialist for the Adrian Dominican Sisters; and Sister Carol Coston, OP, founding Director of Permaculture. Both Siena Heights and Barry Universities collaborate in the program. Speakers included Sister Patricia Siemen, OP, Prioress of the Congregation and former Director of the Center for Earth Jurisprudence; and staff members from local sustainability sites that students visited.

Participants spent much of their time outdoors, working in the permaculture area of the Motherhouse. Service projects included installing deer fencing around the community garden; conducting a waste audit of the Motherhouse; planting an edible forest garden; and building a vermiculture system, in which worms are used to compost organic waste. In a blog, students described their experience and what they’d learned.

A key experience for Pa Sheikh Ngom, a Barry University international business major from Gambia in West Africa, came toward the end of the experience. “We saw everything we talked about [earlier in the experience] come together.” After spending their time drawing sketches of a garden, the students had the opportunity to plant trees and shrubs. 

But along with specific skills needed to work in agriculture and to be good stewards of the environment, the students learned to think in a new way about the environment and about life.

“As humans we impose so much on our surroundings – but nature was already there,” said Ashley Ferguson, a Master’s of Social Work candidate at Barry University. “Now I understand that you can look to nature to learn how to build.” She hopes to use some of what she learned in the program to enhance her own garden.

Participants spread straw and plant perennials in the newly installed rain garden on the east-side of the Dominican Life Center parking lot. Rain gardens help slow storm-water runoff on paved surfaces, also known as "planting the rain."

The daily practice of meditation and opportunities to speak to the Sisters also gave the students inspiration and a new perspective. Matthew Mohammed, a business and mathematics major at Barry, said the experience “motivated and inspired me to want to travel more. [The Sisters] showed me that there’s more to life than the simple problems we go through every day.” Matthew said he also learned to appreciate the beauty around him – whether the buildings in Miami or the natural surroundings in Michigan.

The students – most of whom had never met one another before the Environmental Leadership Experience – came to see themselves as part of a team.  

“Through this experience, we have developed a deeper understanding of what the term ‘sustainability’ truly means, and learned that simple changes, big and small, can be quite effective at making a difference,” wrote Stephanie Bingham, Associate Professor of Marine Biology at Barry University, in her blog entry. “In the process, we have also built strong alliances in our quest for creating a more sustainable future for ourselves and those who come after us. … We leave this experience inspired to do our small parts in raising the level of consciousness surrounding more sustainable and ecologically responsible approaches.”