Bicentennial School Waterfall Project

On a crisp autumn day in mid-October, Raisanen Landscaping joined a handful of other volunteers to participate in Aquascape's "Ponds for Kids" program. Bicentennial Elementary school in Nashua New Hampshire has been actively expanding their environmental education programs that teach Earth Stewardship in a hands-on way. Their gardens include native plants that attract wildlife, as well as architecture-like arbors to provide shade for their outdoor classroom.

The kids feel the sense of accomplishment from a hard day's work, and they continue to learn how plants, soil, and wildlife impact the world we live in. We jumped at the opportunity to share our earth-working skills in this very important community project.

Our contribution was to install a re-circulating stream and waterfall. Where there was a concern about an open water hazard in front of the school, it was decided that a pondless waterfall would be the best solution to get running water into the garden. It was also the perfect low maintenance option.

Who doesn't love "low maintenance?"

A pondless waterfall consists of a basin filled with gravel that gets filled with water. A 4500 gallon per hour pump sits down in the bottom of this gravel filled pond and re-circulates the water up to a biological filter that acts as a waterfall.

The stone basin itself acts as a filter that cleans the water of impurities. Leaves and sticks collect on the top and fine dirt falls to the bottom. Because it is shaded, the main body of water does not grow algae the way a pond can.

A pondless waterfall can be turned off and turned on any time without affecting the water clarity.

As for the kids, they learned about the different types of wildlife that are attracted to water. For one thing, mosquitoes don't breed in running water, so they are not a problem. However, the moving water will attract dragonflies that eat thousands of mosquitoes in a day.

Also finding their way to the water are nesting birds, turtles, hummingbirds, and of course frogs, frogs, frogs!

It was great to hear the kids say that this was THE BEST part of their garden yet! They sent us a very nice hand-made poster thanking us for the work we did.

We would do it all over again in a heartbeat.