Suncoast Pasco News
Scout Creates Butterfly Garden As Eagle Project
Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS
Robert Wiley checks out one of his butterfly-friendly plants.
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Published: March 22, 2008
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Maybe it was all those caterpillars. For 18 years, kindergarten teacher Karen Supper brought them and chrysalides – both parts of the butterfly life cycle – into her classroom.
They came aboard butterfly-friendly plants she put on a cart to teach her students at Lake St. George Elementary School, in the Palm Harbor area, about the complex process that produces butterflies.
Now, one of her former students, 14-year-old Robert Wiley, has given the butterflies and caterpillars their very own garden. Robert created a butterfly garden last summer for his former school as part of his work toward the highest rank in the Boy Scouts, Eagle Scout.
The two-section garden is near Supper's classroom and has 15 plants in each part. Robert selected both those that attract butterflies and host plants for caterpillars.
The garden also has butterfly murals painted by Robert's neighbor Nancy Verderosa and a set of professionally created educational signs about butterflies.
In spite of Supper's class, Robert admits he wasn't very interested in the insect before the project.
But knowledge evidently brings respect. He easily rolls off facts about the insects.
"They're the second largest pollinators next to bees. The largest threat to butterflies is loss of habitat."
Lake St. George staff members love the garden.
"It's a learning center, not just a garden," said Principal Lon Jensen. "You can walk from sign to sign and get an education about butterflies."
The garden has allowed science to take on a personal face, teacher Supper said. "The children have been able to observe the butterflies in all their forms, to hold them in their hands."
Robert, who is in the eighth grade at Carwise Middle School, in Palm Harbor, decided to start his Eagle Scout work early when he was only 13.
"I figured by the time I was 16 or 17, I'd be into football or cars and stuff."
He pauses and adds with a grin after getting a look from his mother, Jayne Dowdy. "I already am."
After more ambitious community service projects were turned down by a Scout review board, Robert decided on the butterfly garden, which won approval from the board.
It would be easy, he thought. "But it didn't end up that way," he smiled.
But even though it required much work, Robert seems to have pulled the project off without a hitch.
He raised $1,500 for his project through car washes and donations.
He did all the groundwork himself, including researching plants that attract butterflies and finding the best buys for garden materials through comparison shopping. He also wrote the educational signs and got them printed.
He even installed a simple drainage system that solved teacher Supper's old problem of water running under her classroom door on rainy days.
The volunteers he recruited gathered for three work days and put in 460 volunteer hours.
"I planned, supervised and did examples of how to do it," he said about his role.
He also learned how to work with adults. "They act different," he said. "Their responses are different."
His mother, Dowdy, remembered Robert's first meeting with one of those adults.
It was with principal Jensen. "When we first went to the school, he asked me, 'Aren't you coming in with me?' "
Dowdy told Robert it was his project, and he was on his own.
By the end of the project, Robert didn't give meeting with Jensen a second thought.
Principal Jensen saw Robert mature. "In working with all the adults, I think what he did was kind of grew up in his leadership."
Robert has his own take on what he learned.
"When you plan to do things, when you go to do them, it's easier than when you wing it."
For more pictures of Robert's butterfly garden project, go to The Suncoast News Web site, keyword: Eagle.
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