Member transforms school courtyard into outdoor learning area
06/23/2016
Nature fuels creativity, and educators know the value of outdoor learning. Studies have demonstrated the benefits of moving from a classroom with walls to one with grass below and blue sky above.
ISTA member John Stoffel has embraced this concept to the betterment of his entire school. A fifth-grade teacher at Flint Springs Elementary School in Huntington County, Stoffel saw an opportunity to convert an aging, overgrown school courtyard into an outdoor learning area (OLA).
An OLA is “a place where children could go, touch, explore and learn about gardening and nature,” explained Stoffel.
His experience in gardening and landscaping lent him the skills and knowledge to pull off this multi-year, ongoing project. In planning the project, Stoffel integrated a variety of gardens with multiple options for learning – vegetable gardens, native flower gardens for species indigenous to Indiana and a Monarch Waystation.
These gardens require dedication and continued care.
“Once or twice a week during the growing season, I meet with students after school, and we do the gardening,” said Stoffel. This routine has burgeoned into the Flint Springs Garden and Nature Club. According to Stoffel, weeding and trimming weren’t holding the kids’ attention. The club now tends the garden, but also explores the meadow, woods and wetlands near the school.
The Monarch Waystation has been a real draw for the students, who last year raised and released 42 monarch butterflies. The waystation provides migrating monarch butterflies with a place reproduce and a stopping point in their thousands miles-long migration. Stoffel and the nature club planted milkweed, a plant on which all monarch caterpillars rely upon for food, and flowering plants as a food source for adult butterflies.
While Stoffel and the nature club have dedicated time and effort to the success of their garden, they haven’t done it alone. A grant from the Huntington County Community Foundation made it possible to purchase the tools and plants needed for the garden. Expertise and guidance was offered by master gardener Sharon Bowman, Martha Feguson of Riverview Nursery and Karen Hinshaw with Purdue Extension. Co-teachers and even the assistant superintendent have occasionally pitched in.
“We are starting to see this area transformed from a ‘look, but don’t touch’ courtyard into a place where students and classes are encouraged to be daily,” said Stoffel. “From art classes creating our herb signs to kinders on a ‘color hunt,’ from preschoolers exploring to students eating lunch in a quieter place; the outdoor learning area has helped expand our educational boundaries beyond the classroom walls.”
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