Planting at Blue Heron Park

Bear Creek offers meaningful opportunities to get Southern Oregon University (SOU) students out into the field to learn about the importance of the restoration along Bear Creek, and when possible, have them participate in some of this work themselves!

Western Monarch Advocates Chair, Robert Coffan prepares SOU environmental science students for a day of planting pollinator gardens at Blue Heron Park along Bear Creek. Photo credit: Rogue Valley Council of Governments

In May, RRWC Project Manager, John Speece, was joined by 20 students from an SOU environmental science lab taught by Dr. Leslie Eldridge. The students planted ~150 pollinator-friendly plants at Blue Heron Park in Phoenix. For some of these students, this was their first time ever planting, or even touching, plants! Thank you to our project partners for attending and engaging with students: the City of Phoenix, Plant Oregon, Rogue Valley Council of Governments, and Western Monarch Advocates. The Wings Across America program offered funding to support this project as well.