A Rewilded Backyard and Mission: Daniel's Reflection

By Daniel Goldberg, RTR Reflection Runner-up & St. Anthony's High School Sophomore

Daniel releasing his first monarch butterfly in the RTR Program at the ReWild Garden at Dodge.

The Monarchs Matter Raise, Tag, and Release (RTR) Summer Program has been a noteworthy and an important learning experience and mindset influence for my life. I learned a lot about monarch butterflies and about native plants due to this program. I learned about the different stages of caterpillar growth, and about how milkweed plants create a whole separate ecosystem, or “biome”. This program really made me appreciate nature and biodiversity far more than I used to, and made me want to actually act on the matter. I was well aware of the environmental issues around today, but I wasn’t so inclined to actually take action on them, until I experienced this program.

Daniel's new native plants for his backyard and berm.

I decided to plant native plants in my backyard instead of a lawn. I reached out in the ReWild group chat and Peggy Maslow let me know that there were some plants left over from a sale at Garves Point. I bought a variety of plants from there and planted them in my backyard. I also got some plants from ReWild at Dodge too. I plan to replace the berm (the strip of grass between the sidewalk and road) in front of my house with flox, a native ground cover sometime soon as well. The Monarchs Matter Summer Program and a lot of the work at ReWild in general really inspired me to try and help the environment. I will volunteer with ReWild again next year as the program is a way to help the environment.

Daniel recording community science monarch observations for the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project.

Also, when I get my voting rights when I turn 18, I will try to sign or even create a petition to change the legislature about lawns. I personally think that this is a major hurdle when it comes to the amount of native plants there could be. For example, on the edge of highways, how come the grass is always mowed? Why not plant native plants like Milkweed, Flox, Brown Eyed Susan, Goldenrod, or Golden Alexander? Also, I might create a website about native plants and their benefits, and why we should be planting natives instead of non-native plants to spread awareness of this issue. In all, I think this program has had a major effect on my mentality about the environment and my readiness to act upon it.

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Stay tuned for more RTR Student Reflections on the Monarch Moments blog!