PEA RIDGE — Nature has many lessons for young and old alike. Teachers at Pea Ridge High School hope to take advantage of those lessons and further what students learn in the classroom.
Interestingly, nature provided a lesson recently while students worked in groups in the wooded area between the two school under the watchful eyes of teachers Holly Dayberry and Perry Mason.
As students carefully designed and built an outdoor classroom, a female killdeer cried out and used her distraction display - acting as though she had a broken wing - attempting to draw the students away from her nest. Not far away a lone speckled egg sat in the nest on the ground.
Once the nest was discovered, it was marked to avoid unintentional destruction.
Throughout the nearly two acres behind the middle school and high school and in front of the primary school, students carried on their projects until the bell rang calling them back indoors.
The location provides an excellent site for an outdoor classroom.
Dayberry solicited and received a $4,200 grant from Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. The grant must be matched by the school district. She said almost $9,000 was provided by the district.
“We can reapply yearly,” she said, adding that all three schools may request grants for the project.
“We’re attempting to install an amphitheater,” Dayberry said,explaining the students’ measuring and marking the landscape.
“We use a lot measuring trying to apply what we learn in the classroom.”
Plans include a pond, stream and wetland, a butterfly garden and a pavilion. Lumber for benches has been purchased. A walking trail is being designed to wind through the shady area. A tree stump may be made into a bird bath.
One of the art teachers, Anya Bruhin, built sculptures for the classroom, Dayberry said.
“We want it as natural and native as possible,” she said, adding that a native stone floor is planned for the amphitheater.
“Our goal is to get a pavilion built and have birds to watch,” Dayberry said. “We can tie lessons here back to all sorts of frameworks and curriculum.”
“The goal of the G&F is to get students and the community working together on a project.
In fact, the students have to help in the design and building of the structures,” Dayberry said.
Last winter, students built scale models of the planned outdoor classroom as a class project. “It’s been a collaborative effort,” she said.
According to the Acommission’s website: “Project Wild is only one of many natural resource programs available to educators.
Project WET, Project Learning Tree and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Total Outdoor Teaching Experience (TOTE) also offer educators the skills needed to take their students on an educational outdoors adventure.”
Sports, Pages 9 on 05/12/2010