By Fran Gustman

Friess Lake School Outdoor Classroom

The Friess Lake School Outdoor Classroom in Hubertus, Wisconsin, used its 2002 Seeds for Education funding to create a scenic and utilitarian four-pond area near the school. The area was engineered by a Washington County conservationist and then constructed by a parent volunteer. This was done to prevent erosion of a filled gully, the site of an old dump. The three ponds became holding basins for water washed from the athletic fields of the middle School into the filled area. Beyond the dump are virgin woods and the floodplains of the Oconomoc River. Seeds and plants were used to cover the hillsides with prairie forbs to further impede the flow of water and to allow it to be filtered before reaching the river. Water plants were added around the ponds.

This article appeared in the September/October 2003 issue of the Wild Ones Journal.

Return to Seeds for Education Success Stories.