FLOWER PROJECT: Grateful for great lessons

I graduated from Post Falls High School in 2002, and one thing I will never forget is the Flower Project. Ask anyone who graduated around that time, and there are good odds they remember scrounging through the woods, collecting 50 specimens of wildflowers and painstakingly pressing and naming them.

I recently read about something called “Plant Blindness” — a tendency for people to ignore or not recognize the plants around them, often to the great detriment of their ecosystems. The presence or absence of certain plants can show so much about whether an environment is healthy, but they’re easily overlooked. Since 10th grade, I’ve never been plant blind, and in this time of wildfires I treasure the fact that I’m aware of flowers like Fireweed. It often grows in after a burn and can actually decrease the likelihood of another blaze (and is beautiful and edible to boot!). How cool is that?

Thank you Post Falls High School for making me press all those DARN flowers; I didn’t just learn their scientific names, I learned how plants function in an ecosystem and why they’re important. More than that, I learned to be curious about the world around me, and that’s the best thing you can ever take away from an education.

…and shout out to all my fellow grads who remember how hard it was to press Dalmatian Toadflax!

LINDSEY RAE DAVIS

Formerly from Post Falls