Outdoor Learning Area
Vision
We have a vision of an outdoor learning space where all students and staff can access it throughout their school days! Whether it be a class learning under the Red Maple or completing an inquiry into echinacea and what it can be used for. It is a place where teachers gather and eat their lunch or where community members volunteer their time to weed, harvest and plant! It is a place where students can read outside, or classes can have a class discussion around the benefits of the use of herbs or harvesting some vegetables or accessing the sensory garden where some of our special needs students can smell, taste, feel and look at the different plants in the raised garden. It is where the whole school can come and gather and learn!
Action
We have had many students involved in the process, from grade 7 and 8 classes putting together a new trellis or assembling the parts for a raised garden. Grade 6s digging out root systems and weeds of invasive plants. Primary grades planting seedlings they have started in their classrooms. Junior classes create Outdoor Learning Area art out of repurposed materials. Students refilling the bird feeders. We have had community resources donate trees/shrubs. We have had parent volunteers donate gardening tools and soil.