WEST BATH

An outdoor classroom is coming to West Bath School, and students are working hard to make sure it’s ready before the end of the school year.

In March, it was announced that Lowe’s Home Improvement awarded the school a $5,000 Toolbox for Education grant for its construction thanks to Elizabeth Jarvis, a gifted and talented teacher at the school who had applied for the grant this past fall.

The opportunity has allowed her students, who are part of the West Bath Build Team, to get involved with the building process through hands-on learning, problem solving and teamwork.

“I was exploring grants in general for it because I knew at the beginning of the year that I wanted to do this outdoor classroom project,” she said. “And I knew I could organize the different children’s skills and interests into that. My literacy group is really enjoying research and reading about outdoor classrooms … different materials and different designs, and my math group is figuring out dimensions, spacing needs and collecting data.”

Jarvis was also grateful that students could focus more on learning rather than raising funds for the classroom itself.

“(The grant) made it possible for the kids to focus on designing the building and all the things that go into that, as opposed to having to worry about fundraising,” she said. “It just kind of took that piece out.”

West Bath School is among many schools that have explored outdoor classrooms for students due to its benefits to learning, healthy movement and accessibility to nature.

Student Laney Crews shared why she felt an outdoor classroom would be beneficial to the school.

“Whenever we’re doing our work, we’re inside and we feel kind of cooped up,” she said. “And so then when we’re outside, it’s a lot easier because then we can have all the nature stuff around us to help us focus, and fresh air as well.”

Students said the best part about the project was that they worked together..

“ We’re working as a group, because if we weren’t working as a group, then it wouldn’t get done,” said fifth grader Abigail Hinds.

“And it wouldn’t be nearly as fun,” Crews added.

Sophie Booth, a fifth grader, said students were asked to think of what they wanted for the outdoor classroom, including shape, structure, flooring, roofing and seating for the project. She shared some of her own ideas.

“I was thinking that if we have an oval shape or circle shape there would be more room … and to have some kind of wood that would allow vines or plants to grow around,” she said. “I found a picture with glass or plastic on the roof and when the light shines through it would have colors on the ground and it would allow light to come in.”

Other design ideas included hipped roofs and open wall concepts.

Joe Shelton, a Lowe’s store manager in Brunswick who has been guiding students through some of their ideas, noted that they were leaning more toward a rustic design with an emphasis “on the natural.”

“I was pretty impressed to see the kids discuss costs of ‘this might be out, this might be in,’” Shelton said.

Other local community members have also visited with the students to speak on related issues like architecture and code laws, which “ties in all these different occupations and all these different community members,” Jarvis said.

She expected to have design concepts squared away by May, while the rest of the month will be devoted to building the classroom with volunteers and community members.

The classroom will be located just beyond the garden beds near the back of the school building, and available to all classes for use once completed. Jarvis hoped the classroom would be ready for a ribbon cutting ceremony at their Celebration of Learning event in June.

Until then, the process will be a valuable learning experience for the students.

“The idea behind expeditionary learning is that we have definite academic goals for the children, but it really is student-centered and organic,” Jarvis said. “They really have to apply their critical thinking, and there’s no one right answer, which is really good for kids to learn at a young age.”

Lowe’s grant

• IN MARCH, it was announced that Lowe’s Home Improvement awarded West Bath School a $5,000 Toolbox for Education grant for construction of an outdoor classroom thanks to Elizabeth Jarvis, a gifted and talented teacher at the school who had applied for the grant this past fall.