In September, kindergarten students from McDowell Early Learning School in Hudson, Ohio, came to the SEED Campus with something most visitors do not bring: a lesson worth of monarch butterflies already under their belts.
These kindergarteners had already spent weeks at school learning about monarch life cycles, milkweed, pollinators and how scientists ask questions and gather evidence, so the visit to the SEED Campus was a chance for them to see science in action.
Students visited the research laboratory to learn how Davey scientists use playdough caterpillar models to study predator behavior, which is a method researchers use to gather evidence without disturbing living animals. They toured the greenhouses, where they connected what they had learned in the classroom about milkweed and pollinator plants to the real thing growing in front of them. They also visited the climbing center to meet arborists and see how professionals train before they ever set foot in a tree.
Each stop on the campus connected to something they had already learned about, and each activity gave them a new question to take back to school.
For Davey, visits like this are a reminder of one of the reasons the SEED Campus was built. It's not just a training and research facility for Davey employees and the green industry, but a place where curiosity about trees, plants and the natural world is always welcome, sparking wonder for the future generation.
