GUILDERLAND — After a decade of work involving middle-school students in restoring the globally-rare Pine Bush, teacher Al Fiero has a new source of funds.

Last Thursday, the State Farm Youth Advisory Board presented Farnsworth Middle School with a $25,370 service-learning grant.

Fiero and another Farnsworth science teacher, Jennifer Ford, applied for the money to expand and upgrade the school’s current hands-on program.
The money, said Fiero, will go to rebuild the greenhouse, which is stocked with native plants; it will pay for "restoration field trips" to the Pine Bush; and it will help fund the summer program, during which student volunteers guide community visitors through the native plant garden in the school’s courtyard and through the butterfly house.

As the students learn about biodiversity, they also educate others. In addition to the school garden, they help maintain native plant gardens at local nursing homes.

After years of practice with other species, Fiero is on the cusp of having students breed and raise the endangered Karner blue butterfly. With native lupine to feed the butterfly, the plan is to re-introduce the Karner blue to its natural Pine Bush habitat, where numbers have flagged in recent years as development encroaches.
"We need a little refurbishing after 10 years," Fiero told The Enterprise. "This will help us put it back together."
Asked about the unusual amount of money in the grant, which is typically in round figures, Fiero said, "I put together a wish list; that’s what it added up to."

Fiero and Ford worked on the application during their professional development time, he said.

Their proposal was one of 44 chosen from among 360 applications from throughout the United States and Canada.

The State Farm Youth Advisory Board is a group of 30 youths, aged 17 to 20, chosen through a competitive process to lead and oversee the $5 million service-learning initiative.