AmeriCorps Member's Environmental Education Certification Project Engages High School Students to Help Monarchs

Corinne Fretwell is an AmeriCorps member serving with the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy in Hendersonville. Like many AmeriCorps members who work on environmental outreach projects in North Carolina, she is also enrolled in the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality's Environmental Education Certification Program. 

                                         Corrine, center, with some of her
                      Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy AmeriCorps colleagues                   

Corrine gets some supervision from one of Deerwoode's year-round residents

The environmental education certification program requires a community-based partnership project, and Fretwell's is especially noteworthy. She worked to install a monarch waystation on land owned by Deerwoode Lodge and Cabins, a privately held resort located along the French Broad River south of Brevard, and also involved local high school students from the area in the project.

In 2003, 175 acres of the land were put into a conservation easement with the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy (CMLC) by owner Bill Mays. But Fretwell felt the land had even more potential to serve as an ecological asset to help wildlife. Bill’s son, Matt Mayes, recounts seeing hundreds of thousands of migrating Monarchs visiting the property’s flowering fields, and in recent years he has shared the Monarchs with the family’s next generation; “I’ve gone out in the field with my daughter and caught them but it’s nothing near to the millions that used to come through here when I was a kid,” Matt shares.


Hopefully many more Monarchs will return as a result of Fretwell's project. She worked with more than 50 Brevard High School agriculture students, who with help from other CMLC AmeriCorps members planted 275 native milkweed plants on the easement. The newly planted milkweed is critical to Monarch populations since milkweed is the sole host and food source for Monarch eggs and caterpillars. The adult butterflies and other important pollinators will benefit from milkweed nectar when the plants bloom in late summer, as well as from the other planted flowers, which will extend the bloom time of the field from June through October.

The milkweed and other flowering plants were donated to the community project by CMLC. Tom Fanslow, Land Protection Director at CMLC obtained the plants from Monarch Rescue and founder Nina Veteto, who received funding for the plants from a U.S. Fish and Wildlife grant.

In keeping with the environmental education aspect, Fretwell
began each planting session with a short lesson about CMLC, land protection, habitat restoration, the Monarch life-cycle, as well as a demonstration of proper planting techniques. Students also received Monarch education materials from Monarch Watch, provided by Monarch Watch Conservation Specialist Joyce Pearsall who also joined in the planting day.

Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy is a non-profit land trust located in Hendersonville, NC. CMLC has protected more than 30,000 acres of lands that you love — and need — along the Blue Ridge Escarpment, French Broad River Valley, Hickory Nut Gorge, and beyond since its inception in 1994. For more information visit carolinamountain.org.

The N.C. Environmental Education Certification Program is administered by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality's Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs. Learn more about the program at www.eenorthcarolina.org