Turning the outdoors into a classroom

Fifteen Madison schools created or expanded outdoor classrooms over the past three years with the help of the GROW Coalition, a group of non-profits, and a grant from the Madison Community Foundation.

Five schools were selected each of the three years through a competitive selection process, and received $8,000 to use towards an outdoor classroom. 

With the end of the school year, the initial project is now complete.  For schools that participated, the project appears to have helped integrate outdoor classrooms into the curriculum.

Tom Linfield, Vice President of the Madison Community Foundation, formed the GROW Coalition in 2011.  Its core members are Sustain Dane, Community GroundWorks, UW-Extension and the Madison Metro School District.  The GROW Coalition provided support and expertise for schools to convert their ideas for outdoor classrooms into reality.

Julie Jarvis of Sustain Dane helped coordinate the program generally while simultaneously aiding specific schools in their projects.  She said a growing body of research pertaining to outdoor classrooms shows a variety of benefits to children, including improvements in learning, behavior, and better nutrition.  Jarvis said schools utilized their outdoor classrooms primarily in two ways:

“You can go outside to learn about the outdoors, or you can go outside to use the outdoors to learn.  And they do both,” she said.

That was Linfield's vision from the start.  He said he wanted teachers across the curriculum to utilize the outdoor classrooms for learning.

The level of need at each school varied.  Some schools already had functioning outdoor classrooms, so grant money paid for expansion.  Others started from scratch.

Shelly Strom and Nathan Larson from Community GroundWorks brought practical advice in helping schools create their outdoor classrooms.

“The kids might come up with ideas of what they want to grow, or what they wanted the outdoor classroom to look like,” Strom said.  “Or even a feeling they wanted to have in that space.”

Strom said she helped with features like placing a shed next to a vegetable garden that holds supplies, or creating a circle of tree stumps in the shade where an entire class could sit.

Lincoln Elementary in South Madison received one of the grants in the first year of the program.  Having already established outdoor learning areas, the grant enhanced the existing space. 

Lincoln used funds from the Madison Community Foundation in addition to a variety of other grants from local organizations in to develop a rain garden, a vegetable garden, plant a variety of native trees, and build an outdoor pavilion with tables and benches.  The pavilion enables any teacher to bring her class outside no matter the subject.

Clare Seguin teaches science enhancement at Lincoln.  The class is a requirement for all students, so Seguin instructs every child in the school for about one hour per week.

Inside the vegetable garden lies several lettuce patches the students planted in March.  Without a fence to protect the plants, Seguin said she feared rabbits might eat the lettuce and other vegetables.  So she instructed one of her classes to research methods to keep rabbits out.  They tried a number of different strategies. Her class placed aluminum sheets around one of the lettuce patches, a statue of a falcon near another, and a number of discs that look like oversized CD's around another.  Seguin said one class also placed tea bags around one of the lettuce patches “because a kid insisted that that's what her grandma does and it always works.”  None of the patches have been invaded by rabbits.

Additionally, Seguin said she taught her classes about the genetic makeup of the lettuce to help them understand why the plants have different color and structure.   

“The science happens with the gardening,” she said.  “So it's not just gardening.”

Sequin said she uses the outdoor garden to teach kids about insects and plants among a variety of other topics.

Because Sequin teaches every child in the school, she learned that many of her students have little exposure to gardens and other natural landscapes.

“A lot of times it's the kids who don't have any contact or experience with gardening who really want to be out here because they just are hungry for this kind of experience,” she said.

Now that the program is complete, each school is tasked with filing a final report with Sustain Dane, who in turn will submit its final report to the Madison Community Foundation, according to Linfield.  

Until then, the academic impact of the outdoor classrooms remains unknown.

“It will really be three years from now, rather than today, to really know if they worked,” Linfield said.

But Linfield said he is hopeful that outdoor classrooms will become as conventional in a child's schooling experience as the library or gymnasium.