On May 11th, YES Staff, Students, Coaches and community members gathered at Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center to celebrate the 2023-2024 YES Season with an exciting new event, the YES Spring Showcase. The goal of this event was to gather together, celebrate the accomplishments of our students and to give them an opportunity to present about their projects and learn about what other students across the state worked on this season. We heard from the YES Teams of Westbrook-Walnut Grove, Watertown-Mayer and Royalton. We were also joined by Ben Weaver, who led us through an activity to help us process this YES Season and cultivate connection with one another.
The first team to present was Watertown-Mayer Middle School. They shared how they were approached by the janitorial staff at their school who were looking for help to revitalize and improve their recycling program. The YES Team took on the challenge and developed a plan to educate other students in their school by creating posters to inform them what can and can not be recycled. They also took on the responsibility of collecting recycling from classrooms every week. They found such success with this project, that their school has reduced the number of dumpsters on their campus! They showed us what a great impact youth can have in their community if they are given a chance and supported by that community.
Next, we heard from the Royalton High School YES team. Their focus this season was on creating a prairie restoration at their school. After several attempts to find the right plot on their school property, the team was ready to get to work. They included several other clubs and classes to help out with their restoration and brought community members to lend a hand when they needed work done with heavy machinery. The YES Team also included younger students from their district in the project by going to kindergarten classrooms and teaching students about prairies and helping them to create seed bombs, which they then used to help seed the prairie. In the Spring of 2024, the Royalton YES Team called in a DNR prairie expert, who was an alumnus of their school, to examine their work and advise them on next steps. He was able to study their work and give recommendations on what else to plant and the density they should be looking for while seeding the prairie. He also discovered that, in a different location on their school property, there was a small plot of true native prairie! This was exciting news for the team and something they could look to for inspiration. This project is ongoing and will give future YES Teams and students in Royalton a place to work and learn in. Prairie restorations are notoriously difficult projects, but these students showed their resolve and established an amazing space that will benefit their community for years to come.
The final student presentation came from the Westbrook-Walnut Grove Team. They focused this season on several projects with the goal of reducing their environmental impact and creating awareness in their community. These projects included clean up after a large community rummage sale, collection of plastic bags from the community to be turned into a bench with the help of their local Lions Club, creating a mural out of plastic bottle caps to raise awareness about plastic waste, building bike racks out of upcycled materials to encourage students to ride bikes between campus buildings, and the creation of a new green space at their school. All of these projects were student-led and these students shared the experience of organizing resources and creating schedules to make time to complete projects together outside of class time. They showed a passion for improving the world around them and working together to accomplish these incredibly creative projects.
After the YES Students shared their accomplishments from this season, we heard from our guest presenter, Ben Weaver. Ben is a poet, musician and facilitator of conversations. He shared stories, songs and poems with us before he led us through a talking circle to help students, coaches and friends of the program to process this season and begin looking to the future. Ben helped us to understand the value of listening, pointing out that while he called it a talking circle, most of the participant’s time was spent listening.
The YES Spring Showcase was an event intended to wrap up the 2023-2024 YES Season, which it did, but on behalf of the YES Staff I can say that more importantly, the Spring Showcase made us excited for the future of the program. To hear from these students and experience the passion that they have for our environment and the work that they’re doing to make it better for themselves and future generations is truly inspiring. Thank you to all of our students, coaches and supporters for everything you’ve done to make this program what it is. We can’t wait to get to work and start preparing for the 2024-2025 YES Season!
Thank you to this event’s sponsors: LP Building Solutions, Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center, Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, Institute on the Environment and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
