Whats The Problem?
In Illinois where our club is located we are known as the Praire state, but thrugh construction and farming the praire has been slowly going away to where there is only less then 1% of native praire left. It can be hard to believe because outisde their are tons of tall plants that look very similar to prairie but there not we know this because they have short roots. Unlike the praire which have long thick roots that help to break apart the soil and clay in the ground so freshwater can have easier access to the watershed. Without these praires roots it will be a lot harder for the water to get back underground.
The Solution
Pollinators! Many people already know the purpose of pollinators to pollinate the plant and bring pollen from one to another. The most common pollinators people know of are bees and butterflies. We want to bring these pollinators to the native plants so we can replensih teh praire and have them thrive in their natural environment. We have already planted milkweed to attract the monarch butterflies . Then we considered bees though we did have a concern with the bees because of their stingers and we want to set the project up around our school. Luckily for us their are over 400 species of bees in our area and one of them are solitary bees. We learned that they do not live in a community but have their own home. We want to help these bees make a home so we learned how and we've called them Habitat Hotels. We've put them around a pond at our school near native plants so the pollinators can help them out and bring them back.
How You Can Help
Do you want to help the native plants in your area? We have some resources for you here is some links to make your own habitat hotel. Then you can always just remember to educate yourself and we have additional resources for that too.
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Make a Habitat Hotel (additional source)
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