Dustin Grime is no stranger to showing kids how exciting science can be.
From building model rockets and engineering toothpick bridges to analyzing microorganisms under a microscope, the sixth-grade science teacher at Granville Intermediate School said teaching “is more about facilitating experiences” for his students.
Last year, Grime expanded his curriculum by introducing his students to caterpillars and teaching them about a butterfly’s life cycle.
“It kind of all spawned from me finding monarch caterpillars last year in my garden,” he recalled.
Grime brought those monarch caterpillars — and a collection of swallowtail caterpillars — into his classroom. He would feed dill and parsley to the swallowtails and milkweed to the monarchs. And when students came into his classroom at the beginning of the day, they would watch the caterpillars feed on the plants.
Both monarch and swallowtail butterflies are considered endangered species. Populations are declining partially because they’re losing access to milkweed through agricultural practices that use harmful pesticides.
Locally, organizations like Pollinator Pathway are working to create caterpillar and butterfly-safe habitats in Licking County — and Grime registered his own gardens as pollinator-safe places.
“This is kind of the first time I’ve ever tried to bring stuff from the outside in,” he said.
But he does have a lot of experience with both teaching and gardening.
He started his career as a science teacher in Columbus City Schools, where he worked for seven years before becoming the dean of students at Granville Middle School. He wanted to get back into the classroom, so he worked as a language arts and social studies teacher at Granville Intermediate School (GIS) for two years before accepting his current position as a sixth-grade science teacher at the school.
“I grew up gardening with my mom, and we would cook and pickle and can and all that stuff, so I have a deep appreciation for all that,” Grime said.
Twenty years ago, while teaching in Columbus, Grime completely rehabilitated a courtyard in his school that was dilapidated and full of weeds. He got a nursery to donate plants and spent one weekend mulching, planting and bringing in new tables for the space.
He also spends time in the summer helping his neighbors transform their gardens into yards full of native plants.
Last year, Grime also became involved in the GIS Garden Club after creating a butterfly garden with his students and seeing their enthusiasm for gardening.
This year, he began installing a bigger garden, thanks to a grant from the Granville Education Foundation. It’s registered with the Licking County branch of Pollinator Pathway.
Pollinator Pathway is a national organization that educates and encourages people to plant native, pollinator-friendly plants and avoid pesticides. There are local Pollinator Pathway projects all around the nation, and people can register their gardens on the pathway. Susan King, who helped start the Licking County branch, donated around 100 plants to the Garden Club.
Licking Land Trust, a Granville non-profit that focuses on the preservation of green spaces in the county, fiscally sponsors the Licking County Pollinator Pathway as well.
Amy Mock is a local volunteer with the Licking County branch.
“The whole point of the Pollinator Pathway is to encourage people to get rid of invasives and plant native species,” said Mock.
Around this area of Ohio, native plants for pollinators can include everything from the monarch butterfly’s essential milkweed plant to wild blue indigo to purple coneflower and much more.
Grime also became involved with Monarch Watch, an organization based at the University of Kansas that facilitates a nationwide Monarch butterfly tagging program.
This fall, Grime and his students will tag up to 100 butterflies that they’ve either raised from caterpillar stage or captured in the wild. They’ll fill out information online to identify the caterpillars and allow the butterflies to be tracked as they complete their journey from Canada to Mexico.
Outside of butterflies, Grime has also been working with worms, specifically red wigglers.
Once a week, Grime and a rising sixth grader will get kitchen scraps and carbon sources and feed them to the four bins of worms Grime keeps in a garden shed.
Grime uses the bins to get worm castings, which can be used as a high-quality natural fertilizer in a process called vermiculture. The Garden Club uses this nutrient-rich compost in their plant beds.
One day a year, sixth-graders at GIS are given the freedom to go anywhere they want in the Land Lab, the 100-acres of land used to teach students about ecology that surrounds GIS. Grime hopes that when his students are in high school, they’ll have the opportunity to reconnect with the Land Lab through Jim Reding’s environmental science classes at Granville High School.
Reding’s students are very active in the Land Lab. They do everything from helping control invasive species to doing habitat projects to mentoring younger students, and sometimes they are just there to relax and enjoy nature.
Reding believes that students have a strong connection to the space after attending the intermediate school.
“It is their place! They feel that in the deepest sense of the word. I believe the students that work in that space feel truly connected to the land in a way that will change how they look at ‘land’ for the rest of their lives! That is the true legacy of the Land Lab,” said Reding.
But while they’re still in the Intermediate school, Grime would like them to start forming a relationship with nature.
“I just want to introduce them to the beauty of this rock we live on and hopefully show them how to take care of it,” Grime said about the experiential learning that goes on in (and out) of his classroom. “Ultimately, I just want them to understand that even though they might be small, they can do great things, and they don’t have to wait until they become an adult.”
Ellie Owen writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.