The 2013-2014 Upper Keys Fairchild Challenge Is Underway!

This year is the 2nd Anniversary of The Fairchild Challenge here in the Upper Florida Keys, as facilitated by The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort in Key Largo. We had an amazing inaugural year last year, and we knew we would have our work cut out for us to make 2013-2014 just as successful.

We kicked things off in August at the Gardens' Small Meeting Center with our Teacher Information Meeting, which serves to introduce teachers and administrators to the program, specifically for the coming year. We had a good turnout of fourteen teachers and administrators representing all of the participating schools in the Upper Keys: The Academy at Ocean Reef, Key Largo School, Ocean Studies Charter School, Plantation Key School, and Treasure Village Montessori. A number of the teachers in attendance are what we call "lead teachers" for their schools; they have an especially good understanding of the program and help teachers at their own schools with any questions they might have about incorporating the Challenge into their curricula, as well as coordinate the submission of entries to The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort for judging.

KKBG's 2013-2014 T.I.M.

At the meeting, we revealed this coming year's challenges as well as some notable improvements to the program, including a web interface for access to most of the pertinent information for The Fairchild Challenge in the Upper Keys. A big part of that was creating Fairchild Challenge booklets tailored specifically for the program in the Upper Keys, removing information that only applies to the program in Miami-Dade County, modifying certain challenges to fit our smaller scale, and adding photos of Upper Keys students and teachers participating in the Challenge from last year, etc. We decided to only make the booklets available electronically this year, so I dedicated a section of the Gardens' website to include the booklets, entry forms, evaluation sheets, resource guides, and challenge results available for download. Here's a screenshot from the Elementary School section of the site:

After the meeting, teachers had a few weeks to spread the word at their schools about The Fairchild Challenge and e-mail me their schools' choices of challenges they would like to participate in. We didn't really know what to expect; whether we would get less or more participation than last year. As the e-mails came in, however, we quickly realized it was going to be a big year. Last year, we had 27 teachers and over 400 students participate in 9 challenges...this year we have 53 teachers and perhaps 500-700 students participating in 15 challenges!

We've had a great start already with a number of interesting challenges, including "Parade of Incredible Insects," a challenge in which elementary school students were asked to make a mask of an insect out of natural and/or recycled materials and describe ways their chosen insect interacts with plants. Although we might often think of plants being able to do just fine on their own, the fact is that they rely heavily on insects to serve as pollinators and even protectors. The students created some amazing masks; here are a few photos of some students at work on the masks, the judging session that took place to determine the winners, and a small collage of a number of the winning masks:

K-1st Grade students at work on a lady bug in Ms. Veronica Gutierrez's class at The Academy at Ocean Reef.

The Small Meeting Center at The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort all set up for judging!

Judges (from L to R) Nola Acker (Assistant Vice President at First State Bank), Biron Valier (Islamorada resident - he brought his own mask), and Holly Raschein (our district's State Representative)

A few of the winners!

As you might guess, the results can be close with so many amazing submissions! And that applies to both students and teachers; one of the fun innovations for this year's Fairchild Challenge was the inclusion of an educator challenge, in which the teachers submit entries they have done themselves. We thought it would be fun to celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of The Fairchild Challenge here in the Upper Keys by asking educators to create a design to commemorate the occasion. The first place entry is by Mr. William de Paula, whose design includes a conch shell as the centerpiece (found both in Kona Kai's logo and the waters surrounding the Florida Keys), two notable tropical plants in our Gardens (the tropical water lily and heliconia), and seven words that concisely convey the mission of The Fairchild Challenge:

We're very thankful to be off to such a great start and are looking forward to the many challenges still to come and the awards ceremony that will top it all off. The students, teachers, parents, and judges involved in the program are having a great time, all the while enhancing their understanding and appreciation for the natural environment on the local and global level, and that's what we're all about here at The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort. If that's what you're about, too, and you'd like to become involved in supporting The Fairchild Challenge here in the Upper Keys as a donor, judge, and/or advocate, send me an e-mail at rick@konakairesort.com. The seeds we plant today shape our world tomorrow.


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

Results from London for Olympic Wreath Competition!

Toss out the rest of your sleeping pills because the official results for the 2012 BGCI / Fairchild Challenge Plant Champions Olympic Wreath Competition are finally in. I am very excited to announce that Bridget Welsh and Emily O'Connor's Olympic wreath and essay were included in the Top 10 finalists of the global judging that took place in London! Congratulations to both of the students, whom I know have had a great time, not only with the project, but with following the competition. Congratulations as well to the teachers and faculty at Key Largo School who enthusiastically chose to incorporate this exciting competition as part of their curricula and made it possible for the students to participate.

Here is a picture of Bridget and Emily's entry, front and center, featured on the Top 10 page:

What a great international showing for Key Largo, our schools, and our students in our first year of participation in a global competition!

The results from the rest of the Competition can be found here. After you've selected a results page, click on each of the photos to see the corresponding plant lists and essays; our entries were amongst some great company. While the Keys wasn't the 1st Place winner in this year's global competition, we'll be preparing like botanical Olympians to win the next one!


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

Environmental Immersion Day at Kona Kai

I know it's been a little while since my last post and you're no doubt wondering if I got stranded on a remote island, lost in the Everglades, or eaten by a giant clam. Fortunately none of the above have befallen me and I have just been very busy with some exciting programs here at Kona Kai, one of which took place this past Tuesday, when The Gardens hosted our very first Environmental Immersion Day (E.I.D.) in partnership with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden for ten high school students from Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami. We provided an opportunity for these selected students to learn more about ethnobotany and experience how what they learn in the classroom applies to "real life." This day was very relevant to The Gardens' educational aspect of its mission and a part of its increasing outreach to local communities to educate both students and adults about the vital importance of plants to human life throughout history and into the future.

To start off the day, I gave the students a brief introductory ethnobotanic tour of the grounds, explaining elements that make for an effective and enjoyable tour along the way. Afterwards I had the students each present on the ethnobotany of a different plant I had not yet covered in the tour. I could see that several of the students found the facts and stories about the plants interesting, giving them an expanded appreciation of their value beyond aesthetics.

Sharing some ethnobotanical facts about our paradisiacal coconut palms (Cocos nucifera).

One of the students describing the ethnobotany of the locust-berry (Byrsonima lucida).

After getting a taste of the ethnobotany of the plants in our collections, we then set out to discover hidden wonders and beauty to be found in our gardens. I first explained to them some of the artistic options we have for taking pictures with our DSLR, such as changing the depth of field, lighting, and close-ups. I encouraged the students to take more than a passing glance at the plants, to point out shots they thought would be interesting, and describe how they want me to adjust the settings on the camera before taking the shot. After getting several good shots, we went back to the conference room and displayed the photos on the projector, from which we selected our favorites, a few of which can be found interspersed throughout the rest of this post.

Aechmea 'Blue Tango' was a given - the students suggested I use this angle, focus on the tip of the inflorescence, and blur the background.

Students were able to gain a greater appreciation for the complexity of plants through this activity and realized there is much more to be seen if one takes the time to look closely. Speaking of looking closely, while we were walking the grounds I took time to explain how to identify and treat some plant health maintenance concerns we deal with that are often hard to see, including mealy bugs, scale, nutrient deficiency, trees that need pruning, thrips, whitefly, and snail damage. Veronika, our Grounds Director, is great at staying on top of all these concerns to the extent that most of our guests never see any adverse effects of these concerns on our plant collections and it was tough for me to find examples to show the students!

The students liked the look of this recently-pruned and now re-sprouting branch of our royal poinciana (Delonix regia), calling it "The Three-Headed Monster."

One of the challenges I faced when coming down to the Keys was learning a new set of plants. I had lots of help from Joe and Veronika but sometimes I had to make use of plant identification keys in order to determine the identity of a plant, which can be both a fun and frustrating process. I made up a small key of plants on the property and after dividing the students into three teams, gave it to them to figure out the names of several of the plants in our gardens. They really got into it and enjoyed the process of keying out the plants as well as the friendly competition with their peers.

They had no need for a key to identify the papaya plant (Carica papaya), but I had to help them out with the name of our photogenic reptilian friend, the green anole.

In the early afternoon I took the students out to conduct inventory of a few of our garden beds so that they could get an idea of what is involved in properly curating a plant collection. We measured plants, evaluated their condition, took phenology notes (in bloom, ripe fruit, etc.), and then came back inside to enter all the data we collected into BG-Base. The students had a fun time arguing about what condition the plants were in and also guessing at measurements of the plants. A more in-depth description of what we did can be found in my blog post from Nov. 19: Plant Inventory Finished and Records Labels Arrive!

Our pummelo tree (Citrus maxima) was in bloom and is deliciously fragrant, but as this picture demonstrates, look carefully before diving in nose-first!

In the conference room, we then discussed the purpose and process of creation of records labels and display labels for plants, and also the process of ethnobotanical research which goes into the creation of the large display labels. After this, we talked a bit about the social media aspect of my job and I had the students write a small hypothetical blog or Twitter post in which they describe their overall impressions from the day, several of which I've quoted below:

"Coming to the Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai was  a fantastic experience, especially during the hands-on exercises."
"Opened my eyes to see plants differently...ordinary things can have a much greater importance in everyday life. Plants can heal, comfort, and offer pleasure."
"Thanks to @kkgardens for showing me around their beautiful botanic garden. There are more to plants than you think!"
"Great time @kkgardens! I encourage taking a tour as there is much to learn about ethnobotany!"
"Had an amazing experience at @kkgardens. I enjoyed learning about different plant species, how they can affect our lives, and what we can do to help keep them healthy and alive."
"Had an awesome day at Kona Kai Botanic Gardens. What people don't understand about plants is extraordinary. I learned so much about the uses of plants in our development as humans."
"The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai really helped me understand the real-world value of plants and the ethnic, medicinal, and industrial implications they have in our surrounding environment. Often we don't stop and appreciate the real value these plants have in our lives."
"At Kona Kai my eyes were opened up to how useful plants are in our everyday lives and how our interactions with plants have helped the human race survive and prosper."

The flowering stalk from one of our 'Praying Hands' banana plants - the bud opens bract by bract to reveal lines of flowers, which are then pollinated and become fruits.

It was excellent to hear that sort of feedback from the students; is seems like my points hit home with them and that the hands-on activities we took part in throughout the day engaged not only their bodies but their minds as well. Finally, we had a final question and answer session and I was sure to record all the feedback given by the students. Fortunately, we seem to have done very well with our first try but "the largest room in the house is always the room for improvement," so we'll be working hard to make our next E.I.D. even better and more interactive. To finish up, here's a great shot of all the students who participated in our E.I.D. along with their chaperone from Belen, Mr. Martinez (far right) - I had a great time spending the day with you all!

Look forward to more posts about the ways in which The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort is getting involved in and giving back to our local southern Florida communities, including the third installment of the Olympic Wreath Competition story, coming up next!


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

Fairchild Challenge coming to the Keys via Kona Kai BG

Educating the next generation about the importance of plants and our natural environment to the well-being of humanity is crucial.  Through our interactions with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, FL, we learned of the Fairchild Challenge and its devotion to this type of work (more information on the Challenge can be found here).  Although the program impacts tens of thousands of students in South Florida and throughout the world, it has not yet made successful inroads to schools in the Florida Keys.  When we discovered this, we thought it would be great to find a way to make this happen, so we became a Fairchild Challenge 'satellite partner.'  After some research and discussion, we found a perfect project to start with: the 2011/2012 Plant Champions Olympic Wreath Global Competition, the result of a collaboration between Fairchild and Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI).  Essentially, teachers work with students to create wreaths inspired by the Olympics made out of plants characteristic of our region (preferably natives).  Students also write an essay explaining their plant choices, including a conservation message applicable to one of the plants.  Pictures are taken of students wearing the finished wreaths; the wreaths and essays are then judged by a panel at The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai, with the top 5 winning pictures/essays from Keys schools sent off to London to be displayed at the 2012 Olympic Games - pretty cool!  Instead of going into all the details in this post, you can find more information on BGCI's website.  Here are a couple nice examples BGCI gives of plant wreaths:

After seeing these wreaths, I felt inspired to spend some serious time making one myself.  For inspiration, I delved deep into Olympic wreath history, explored and wrestled with wreath philosophy, schooled myself on the artistic principles and thought of some of the greatest artists in history, and agonized over plant choices for my wreath.  After several sleepless nights and hours of work, I finally finished my masterpiece:

I decided on the native Hamelia patens (firebush) as the sole plant in my wreath, drawing my artistic influence from 16th century abstract minimalism.  Given this, it is understandable that it might be a little tough to recognize and appreciate the sheer beauty and complexity of this masterpiece, but for those who can recognize and appreciate it, before you get all upset, I want to assuage your fears: I will NOT be including my wreath as an entry to take all of the awards in this competition away from everybody else.  As an ethnobotanist and amateur artist/philosopher, I clearly have many unfair advantages, and I know deep down it just wouldn't be right.

Ok ok, for serious now - since class participation in the Competition is up to individual teachers, we collaborated with Bobbi Burson, a teacher at Key Largo Middle School who has a passion for educating her students about the importance of plants and nature in general, to bring together a group of teachers interested in participating.  Several teachers responded with interest, and after our initial organizational meeting in which we discussed details of the Competition and how it can be integrated into various curricula, we are all set to begin.  When teachers are ready to begin work in their classes, I will travel to the middle school to introduce the Competition to each class to get them psyched up and excited about it, which I have heard might be a little challenging, especially when it comes to the guys in each class...it might be analogous to getting girls excited about doing a project about sports cars and weapons (a generalization, but you know what I mean).  Submissions will be made to Kona Kai by participating classes no later than January 20, 2012, so look forward to a post early next year with some great pictures of what the students come up with.


Rick 'Wreath' Hederstrom
Associate Director