Terra Centre Watershed Festival And Art Show

Terra Centra compost Art – photo FMN Jerry Nissley

#WOW – FMN and teacher Kristin Bauersfeld co-organized a watershed festival & art show at her school that took place on Thursday, April 23 to coincide with Earth Week. The organizing theme was how we can individually and collectively make a difference and help improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The students from each grade level at Terra Centre Elementary in Burke created art projects connected to watershed issues.

Glow room, featuring photoluminescent creatures – photo FMN Jerry Nissley

The school’s Get2Green leader, Laure Grove and Kristin invited community groups (county soil and water, Mason Neck state park, VMN, Northern Virginia Bird Alliance, Girl Scouts, etc) to host a table or an interactive station such as an Enviroscape, water quality, water shed management, invertebrates, composting, recycling, native plants, animals, herps, fish, birds, and of course a glow room!

Even the origin of the school is steeped in Fairfax County environmental conservation history. Terra Centre Elementary School opened on September 2, 1980. Designed during the energy crisis of the 1970s when school facility planners eagerly sought new and creative ways of making schools more energy efficient.

Environmental student art – photo FMN Jerry Nissley

Terra Centre was the product of a unique design concept – a school built largely underground. The roof of Terra Centre was covered with earth, 3 feet deep, to mitigate heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter. The architect designed windows and skylights to let in plenty of natural light so the school would not have a dark and gloomy feel as parents initially feared. A bank of solar collectors was installed on the earth covered roof in 1982. The solar collectors were one of two energy systems implemented to simultaneously draw upon “free” sources of energy. When the sky was clear, the solar collectors harnessed heat from the sun. When school was in session, a heat reclamation system drew upon and stored the warmth generated by people and lights. The facility was refurbished in 2017, adding above ground  glass atria and additional amenities all with the environment in mind.

FMN John Goodin behind the FMN macro-invertebrate/turtle table – photo Jerry Nissley

FMN John Goodin presented a station on Macro-invertebrates to demonstrate how they are evaluated as indicator species to determine water quality using basic stream monitoring techniques. That display was complemented by Turtle Talk, a presentation on woodland box turtles (Terrapene carolina) and how they can be used to determine soil quality and monitor local habitat conservation.

Turtle Talk box turtle – photo FMN Jerry Nissley

Many people were surprised to hear that Box Turtles are part of the Emydidae (pond turtle) family of turtles and have been observed swimming or simply walking across the bottom of a creek, mainly to cool down in hot weather or, well, just to get to the other side. Box turtles are superficially similar in appearance to tortoises but tortoises are actually in a distinct family –  the Testudinidea (land dwelling) family of turtles. John also talked to several guests interested in learning more about VMN.

FMN chapter partner, Northern Virginia Bird Alliance also contributed valuable information to the community event. Sarah Mayhew and Liz Train were behind the NVBA table – they are both FMN and NVBA members.

The Watershed and Art event was a total hit and kudos go out to all the creative teachers and staff who work tirelessly on a daily basis to make this unique school a success and enrich the lives of their students.