Photo: Devine Native Plantings.
Jean Devine, founder of Biodiversity Builders, is in the front row, second from left. She engages young people in the important work of improving the environment.
Recently, I blogged about my friend Jean Devine, founder of Biodiversity Builders, and described how she took me on a tour of local urban forests. (Click here.)
Now I find that Edible Boston has caught up with her and is highlighting the amazing environmental work Jean’s been doing with young people.
Nicole Estvanik Taylor writes, “Ask the average Gen Z-er to name their favorite native plant and you might expect a blank stare. But for alumni of the Biodiversity Builders program, the hard part is narrowing it down.
“Strawberries come to mind for Jasmine Rancourt, International School of Boston graduating senior — ‘or maybe butterfly weed, because it’s really pretty and vibrant … and it attracts butterflies, obviously.’
“Belmont High School’s Sophia Shaginian chose to plant bleeding heart in front of her house because it’s ‘absolutely gorgeous’ and ‘blooms all summer long.’
“Leia Ahmad-LeBlanc of Arlington Catholic High School gravitates to the striking red pods of wild sumac. ‘You can actually make lemonade out of it, and it’s a good source of food for animals.’
“And UMass Amherst student Kira O’Neill is partial to black birch trees: ‘They have such beautiful yellow leaves in the fall. And if you scratch a twig, it smells like root beer.’
“The students got to know these and many other plant species native to Massachusetts through a six-week paid summer internship created and run by Jean Devine, a Belmont-based environmental educator, native plant coach and specialty landscaper.
“Entering its fourth year, Biodiversity Builders has provided 55 high school students from Arlington, Belmont and Cambridge with hands-on experience designing and installing native plant gardens and removing invasive flora. The curriculum also covers entrepreneurial concepts like mission and marketing and culminates in a native plant sale run entirely by the students. …
“It’s only been a decade or so that Devine herself could tell you much about birch trees or bleeding hearts. …
“ ‘I was looking for opportunities to mentor youth and get them outdoors as an antidote to “nature-deficit disorder,” ‘ she says, referencing a term coined by journalist Richard Louv in his book Last Child in the Woods.
“A walk with a scientist opened Devine’s eyes to the ecological value of native plants, including as a source of food and shelter for pollinators and other wildlife, and the threat invasives pose to biodiversity. Teaching kids how to restore this balance struck her as ‘an ideal project with a purpose that helped the world and the youth at the same time.’ …
“After several years running nature programs for school kids in Cambridge and Brookline, she launched her own business, Devine Native Plantings, in 2021. Biodiversity Builders followed a year later, operating as a nonprofit under the fiscal sponsorship of the Vermont-based Tiny Seed Project. It partners with the Cambridge Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program to support the participation of students from that city and covers the rest of its budget through grants and crowdfunding. This July, it will recommence with a fresh batch of 14 high school students and a pair of college mentors, plus four young professionals interested in the Biodiversity Builders approach.
“ ‘Jean is so high energy and enthusiastic about the curriculum,’ says O’Neill, who did the program in 2022 and returned last summer as a mentor. ‘She very easily connects with the students … and she knows so many of the people in the area doing similar kinds of work.’
“Among her many affiliations, Devine is a co-founder of the Mystic Charles Pollinator Pathways Group, which maps local gardens that support declining populations of native bees, butterflies and birds. She guided Belmont High School’s Climate Action Club in creating a pollinator garden and is part of an intergenerational committee of Belmont residents organizing to plant a Miyawaki miniforest. As a member of the Native Plant Community Gardeners group in Cambridge, she’ll help install Danehy Park’s first pollinator garden this summer — with upkeep to come from the 2025 Biodiversity Builders crew. …
“For 2024 Biodiversity Builders participant Rancourt, who has artistic leanings, planning gardens that are aesthetically pleasing and ecologically useful was a highlight of the program.
“ ‘It turns out you have many colorful native plants that can be used,’ Rancourt reasons, ‘instead of those other plants that are colorful but look like plastic for pollinators.’ …
“Ahmad-LeBlanc, part of last summer’s cohort, says she applied to Biodiversity Builders after watching her sister go through the experience two years prior.
“ ‘She would always come home covered in dirt, she would have to wear super high socks because there were a lot of ticks, but she had a great time,’ she says. When it was her turn to get dirty, she understood why. ‘I think it was easier for us to process the information because it was all really hands-on … It’s a way that we’re not usually able to learn in school.’
“The Alewife reservation is Biodiversity Builders’ home base, but the students tend plots in other community spaces. … Last summer they removed invasives at Mass Audubon’s Habitat Education Center and Wildlife Sanctuary with the aid of its resident goats; toured Mount Auburn Cemetery with a herpetologist, a horticulturalist and an artist; and took the T to East Boston for birdwatching in Belle Isle Marsh. They also donned gloves and climbed into canoes with the Mystic River Watershed Association to remove thick, spiny mats of invasive water chestnuts from the Arlington Reservoir—filling 270 laundry baskets by day’s end.
“ ‘It was just amazing how we were all collaborating and working all together,’ says Shaginian, who shared a canoe with Devine. ‘I remember how big that pile was. It was huge.’
“Shaginian says pulls like that one, or the sweaty hours spent uprooting black swallow-wort along the edge of the Minuteman Bike Path, impressed upon her both the enormity of the problem and the importance of doing her part. …
“ ‘For me, the idea of getting paid to do gardening, which I did at my house for fun, was novel and exciting,’ says O’Neill, ‘and definitely cemented the idea that I wanted to study something related to working outside when I got to college.’ “
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