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Named for our first head of school, the David Heath Outdoor Education Center is a favorite campus location for students and staff alike. A combination outdoor classroom, organic food garden, flower garden, butterfly garden, weather center, native wildlife habitat, and host for the school’s solar panels, the Outdoor Education Center (OEC) provides a wealth of opportunities for education and recreation: digging weeds, picking berries, painting, writing poetry, or dangling your feet in the pond.
Have you ever considered how much geometry is needed when a group of students measure a garden plot to determine the appropriate amount and placement of seeds? Ever tried to calculate how fast a box turtle is moving if it takes her 30 minutes to crawl 100 feet from point A (shelter) to point B (the pond)? What about the scientific method that is applied when a group of children devise an experiment to determine the best materials for plant propagation? Biology isn’t the only thing a garden illustrates; math and science have rightful places here as well. A school garden is a living lab where students can dive right into the basic processes that sustain life. Traditionally, teachers relied on dioramas, mobiles, and field trips to aquariums or planetariums to bring their curriculums to life. At MP&MS, teachers have a place for students to study first-hand the life cycle of plants, the process of natural decomposition, the water cycle, or the effect of insects, bacteria, weather and pollutants on the soil and the environment. Our OEC has become the place where abstract ideas and problems, formerly studied in textbooks and solved on blackboards, are brought to life and made meaningful. |
