The Outdoor Sustainability Classroom will benefit the entire student body and school community. This upgraded outdoor learning space and science lab will do the following:
- Provide students with real-time lab opportunities that allow for authentic evaluation of current energy conserving (green roof) and energy producing (solar panel) technologies.
- Allow students to investigate relationships between these two technologies, and make informed judgements (based on gathered evidence) as to whether these relationships are synergistic.
- Provide a wide array of more detailed investigative opportunities to explore – for example: measuring the degree of water retention of the plant boxes by studying their porosity and subsequent run-off.
- Require critical thinking and investigative skills.
- Actively engage students with each other in an open lab space, free of restraints that may be found in a traditional classroom. The outdoor classroom provides instant access to natural variables that are difficult to realistically reproduce in an indoor classroom.
Key impacts of the project:
- Students are off screens and outdoors.
- The curriculum offers an enriched daily learning experience with outdoor science labs and language arts classes.
- The school is positioned as a model for environmental stewardship.
- The new gathering space combines education and community.