Page 2 - 2015-16 Annual Report

Eco Design/Living Wall
When a Living Wall was first considered at Priory, the idea was to have an outside firm create and install it. Then the price quotes came in shockingly high, and teacher Hovey Clark had a crazy idea. Why not have his Eco Design class try it? It was just the kind of hands-on STREAM project the course was made for, a perfect fit for the new Learning Competencies, and his class could get it done at a fraction of the cost.
But designing and installing a vertical hanging garden turned out to be a much bigger challenge than anyone expected. “We were essentially recreating a tree,” says Mr. Clark. “And moving water uphill is exceedingly difficult for humans.” He and his students had to take into consideration water pressure and volume, soil and plant types, the weight of wet and dry soil, structural issues, aesthetics, and even construction and building codes. “There was no top-down learning happening in this classroom,” Clark says. “Nobody was an expert. We were all learning at the same time.”
Sometimes he feared he’d taken on too much. “I thought we were going to need professionals to come in and finish it,” he says. But a turning point came one day during the installation phase. His students were up on the scaffolding and they asked him to please stop calling up instructions from below. “I’m embarrassed to say I still don’t know what they were doing, or why it was better than what I was suggesting,” Mr. Clark admits. “But I had to say, ‘OK, I trust you guys.’ And you know what? It worked. They were totally right.”
That Living Wall now stands—or better said, hangs—as a powerful symbol of Priory’s commitment to sus- tainability. It’s also proven to be a resounding design success. Fertilized with water from last year’s aquapon- ics project and irrigated automatically, the wall requires almost no maintenance and the plants are thriving. Mr. Clark couldn’t be prouder of his students and what they created. “It’s a beautiful reminder,” he says, “Of our connection to the earth and to stewardship.”