A Large Community Collaboration with Carleton University

Throughout the fall of 2024, Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability (CAFES) and Carleton University partnered with six Community Associations (CA) and Fletcher Wildlife Garden to conduct a CAFES-Carleton Community Engagement Project!  This year MAPP was invited to become involved with the Bel-Air Community Association (BACA).   Harry Fisher, Pam Gullen, and Andrea Gowing were the BACA representatives.

This annual engagement project involves students in a 2nd-year sociology/anthropology course partnering with CA representatives. The students are tasked with creating products and deliverables that will ultimately benefit the CA’s neighbourhood and address particular environmental concerns – with each year having a new topic. This year, the topic was “Encouraging Pollinator Gardens”  The class was taught by Professor Phil Primeau.

“For the CA leads, this project was an opportunity to learn and engage with important issues relating to pollinators, biodiversity and gardening in their community, connect with the students in their group, and have their neighbourhoods benefit from the deliverables the students are able to create for them.”   (CAFES, 2024)

During the second week class, the students toured Fletcher Wildlife Gardens and were given a good introduction to pollinators by experts Sandy Garland, Ted Farnworth, and Dr. Heather Kharouba.

In October our group toured six neighbourhood gardens to gain understanding of particular issues experienced by the community.  We looked at the Agincourt Boulevard Pollinator Garden, a rain garden on Mallard, the Agincourt School gardens, along with Andrea, Harry, and Pam’s personal gardens.  

Our students attended the Bel Air CA’s Annual General Meeting where they promoted pollinator gardening using an excellent PowerPoint presentation.   They created a wonderful commercial/video on taking action for pollinator gardening and went door to door in the neighbourhood to speak with community members about pollinator gardening.

During the door to door, they met with 26 neighbours and asked four questions:

Question 1: Do you feel more informed after our chat about pollinator gardens? Yes 26  – No 0

Question 2: Would you be interested in starting a pollinator garden? Yes 18 –  No 8 

Question 3: Are you interested in joining MAPP on Facebook? Yes  24  – No 2

Question 4: Are you willing to share your email with MAPP?  Yes 19 –  No 7 

They made a new website page including important information about pollinators, that became the jumping off point for this webpage!

Our involvement with this project was a great experience.  We hope to be involved in 2025 learning more about invasive species!