Mather House Works to Improve Watershed

As part of their service commitment to the issues of Environment and Sustainability, the members of Hawken’s Mather House are working to improve water quality in the Lake Erie Watershed by partnering with the Doan Brook Watershed Partnership. The Doan Brook watershed encompasses about a 12 square mile area in the eastern metropolitan area of Cleveland, Ohio. Doan Brook’s three branches form the heart of the Shaker Lakes park system, uniting to flow west and northwest through Rudy Rodgers Memorial Park, Rockefeller Park and the Cleveland Cultural Gardens. Hawken School’s new urban campus in University Circle is within the watershed, which makes the work to protect this local water resource an important lesson in the value of civic action and responsibility.
 

Mather’s commitment to sustained work within the watershed area has allowed The Doan Brook Watershed Partnership to move forward on several of its initiatives to mitigate polluted rain and snowmelt run-off from hard surfaces such as sidewalks, driveways and parking lots. The members of Mather House have committed to maintain several bioswales, landscape features planted with local plant species and located at strategic locations that filter out pollutants carried by water that runs over paved city surfaces. In addition to regular care of existing bioswales, Mather students will be meeting with a landscape architect at the Gries Center to learn about bioswale design, and will design and build 2 new bioswales in the University Circle area. Mather House leaders are also collaborating with the Executive Director of the Doan Brook Watershed Partnership, Victoria Mills, to design summer internship opportunities for interested students.
 

Student leaders Arthur Erlendsson and Sarah Jammal, both class of ’13, along with faculty leader, Michael Ialacci, have worked hard to deepen our relationship with Doan Brook and are creating a dynamic opportunity for learning, service and making a real difference in the Cleveland community.