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Projects -
Community Support
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By Nancy Neyenhouse, Chair - Grant Screening Committee
The Mountaineer Foundation has been an ardent supporter of organizations who bring educational projects to our grant-proposal table. The Foundation’s mission to promote the study, protection and enjoyment of natural areas is perfectly suited to this project.
The Townsend School District of Townsend, Montana applied for a Foundation grant in 2008. The funds
Creating weed map from collected GPS points
Students spent an entire semester learning how to use the GPS/GIS ArcView unit and then applied for summer jobs with the county to map Spotted Knapweed infestations. Included with the project was monitoring and caring for insectaries, where Root Boring Weevils were raised and then released into the knapweed-infested areas. Students visited sites identified over the past several years, collected data from those sites, and identified new sites for bio-agent releases.
Students collecting insects in the insectary
They also completed a progress report for community education on the success of the bio-control agent program. Students discovered that on sites which received the weevils a year ago a slowing of the spread of the knapweed was evident and other plant life is returning to the areas. The report will be used to continue the placement of these bio-control agents during the summer and fall of 2009.
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