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Maintenance Developmental Prairie Native Prairie Communities Species Descriptions Forbs Grasses Projects Bus Tour 08 Butler University Hamilton County Fairgrounds Lake Forest Pearson Ford Raymond Park School

Raymond Park School view video The wetland at Raymond Park is an educational project funded by a Golden Eagle Grant form Indianapolis Power and Light. The location of the park adjacent to Raymond Middle School provides a unique opportunity for its use as an outdoor laboratory.   The park has an existing high quality flatwoods. The goal of the project was to add a prairie and wetland community to the educational opportunities on the site. The grant funded construction of a wetland basin with an extensive shallow sedge meadow along the periphery. The shallow water and sedge meadow communities were established through the installation of 6,843 plugs over about 1.3 acres. Six acres of prairie were sown around and south of the wetland.   The plugs were installed in the spring of 1999. In spite of a lengthy drought in the summer of 1999, the plugs were well enough established by the summer to tolerate the drying the occurred in the latter half of the growing season. The plants have filled in well in the years since the planting, creating a high quality sedge meadow. The school has utilized the wetland for its biology curriculum.