LOGAN – Harmony School will be holding an Outdoor Classroom Workday on Tuesday, Mar. 21. Students, parents, faculty and community volunteers will be building pollinator and butterfly gardens, planting native plants and trees, establishing a berry patch and working on raised beds. They will also be constructing a sensory garden with plants and herbs that will provide multi-sensory experiences of sight, touch and smell. A weather station, information kiosk and cardinal direction sign will also be built.
Workers will take shifts throughout the school day, from 8 a.m. until around 2:30 p.m.
The Outdoor Classroom Program is a cooperative effort between the Alabama Wildlife Federation, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Harmony's outdoor classroom (as well as those at several other area schools) was built with assistance from the North Alabama Agriplex.
The Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program works with schools to provide hands-on, outdoor learning opportunities that allow students of all ages to utilize multiple-disciplinary skills in a fun and exciting environment. At present, more than 300 schools (as of 2016) across Alabama are developing outdoor classroom sites through the Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program.
According to Harmony's librarian and outdoor classroom teacher Lea Scott, "The goal for our outdoor classroom site is to provide hands-on learning stations where students observe insects, birds and reptiles as well as grow edible crops and learn about nutrition. The gardens will provide a natural lab for our outdoor classroom site where students will participate in hands-on, real-world activities as they study the micro-ecosystems they’ve created. In addition, the flowers, plants, shrubs, trees and water areas will provide valuable food, shelter and water as wildlife habitat for local wildlife."
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