Members of the Environment Club at Lake Park High School in Roselle are busy with some wood, some hammers and lots of nails as they put together bird houses in readiness for spring.
The club will give some boxes to residents who live near the high school. They will sell others to raise funds for their most ambitious project: the restoration of 12 acres to natural prairie.
The site, located just off the west campus and known as Goose Lake, was given to the organization by the Roselle Park District last year.
“I used to drive by the site every day,” said Ken Evans, a history teacher and environment club adviser. “It bothered me that there was this mud shoreline.”
He said there were no plants in which fish and small animals could hide; there were no trees.
“We talked about it at the club,” he said, “and one thing just led to another.”
In addition to a donation of land, the Roselle Park District donated $1,000. Another $2,000 came from a grant from the Wildlife Habitat Improvement Project of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Students raised $500 by recycling aluminum.
Last spring the students planted prairie grasses, flowers and 100 trees on the site. “We are looking forward to this spring,” he said. “Spring is when you can really see the growth of all the plants.
“We are building bluebird boxes and house wren boxes now,” Evans said. “During the winter, there is not anything we can really do outside, so we concentrate on this.”
Slowly, he said, he and the students have witnessed the return to the area of egrets and a sparrow hawk, which had not been seen in the area for at least 10 years.
