The benefits of outdoor classrooms and their impact on learning is being put to the test in a new project at South Delta Secondary.
Several departments at the Tsawwassen high school are now using a newly-renovated space as a chance to take the learning into a fresh air environment.
As part of his Grade 9 science course, Richard Hortness is teaching his students about sustainability and resource renewal. Part of that project is to get students to design and build an outdoor classroom with seating for 30 that is also self-sustaining for power and water.
“Several groups came up with easy to construct pallet furniture. The benefit here is that wooden pallets are generally created with a one-time use in mind,” he said. “As such we got lots of donated wood that we could use to construct easy seating for our students while reducing the environmental impact of single-use products.”
Once the construction was underway, other departments came on board and provided new learning opportunities for not only the science class, but also for the school’s woodshop students.
Woodshop teacher Katrina Branden helped Hortness with construction, design ideas and introduced old-world knowledge into the build.
“Some Indigenous groups as well as the Japanese use fire to cure the wood and waterproof it, so we took these methods and modernized them for this project using a tiger torch,” Hortness explained.
This method also continues to turn the project into a science experiment on its own as the students continue to watch the longevity of the pallets in the outdoor classroom environment.
He said so far this spring the response has been a positive one as several classes from the French and humanities departments are already getting outside.
“We are not done with making this project and space perfect for our students,” he added. “We would love to see more businesses in the area help us reach our goals of a fully self-sufficient classroom. Once we get things like solar panels we can start to teach our students more about new aspects of our curriculum like electronics and conservation through renewable resources.
“There is a genuine interest from the students to get out of the classroom, enjoy the benefits of being outside, while still learning and completing their studies.”
Hortness said studies have found that attention spans increase when kids are out of a classroom setting, and when they come back inside they focus better.
“There are also the mental health benefits of things like sunshine, fresh air,” he said. “There are no real negatives. We spend so much time inside. I see kids interacting more in this space. It’s neat to see the kids interacting in a different, out of classroom setting learning in different ways.”
