WASHINGTON 鈥� There is no carpet, no ceiling and no desks inside Beacon Heights Elementary School鈥檚 newest classroom.
Instead, there are mulched plots, raised vegetable beds and tree stumps that serve as seats.
The Prince George鈥檚 County school is the first D.C.-area school to partner with the nonprofit organization to design and build an outdoor 鈥渓earning garden.鈥�
鈥淪chool gardens are rising in popularity across the United States, which is just fantastic, but often times the gardens are underutilized,鈥� says REAL School Gardens CEO Jeanne McCarty.
A school garden doesn鈥檛 have to end with a collection of vegetable plants. Similar to a computer lab or school library, McCarty says outdoor spaces can be an additional resource for teachers: 鈥淪omething teachers can use to get kids more engaged in math lessons, more engaged in science and more inspired in language arts.鈥�
Over the past 10 years, REAL School Gardens has built 100 learning gardens in low-income areas across the nation, and the organization has plans to work with nine additional schools in the D.C. area in the upcoming year.
On Saturday, more than 100 people from Beacon Heights and the surrounding community came out for the school鈥檚 鈥渂ig dig.鈥� Volunteers erected the garden鈥檚 arbor entryway, set up a music learning center and laid plans for a weather station and an ivy-covered bird habitat.
Beacon Heights Principal Lynne Stuewe says the new garden is the perfect place for students and teachers to connect cross-curricular content, such as a social studies chapter on how Native Americans grew their own food with a science lesson on soil composition and photosynthesis.
鈥淪tudents always do better when they have real tangibles to look at and see how things connect with one another,鈥� she says. 鈥淲ith the garden, they get to have a bigger picture of what everything entails.鈥�
Outdoor classrooms offer a change of scenery and a break from long days spent cooped up in small desks, but they鈥檙e helping to improve test scores.
According to collected by REAL School Gardens, schools with learning gardens saw a 12 to 15 percent increase in standardized test score pass rates, and 94 percent of teachers reported increased student engagement.
McCarty says she鈥檚 also seen 鈥渁mazing results鈥� among teachers. Morale and job satisfaction nearly doubled with the gardens, and 90 percent of teachers who use the gardens reported feeling prepared to help their students succeed academically.
Stuewe believes Beacon Heights鈥� new garden will benefit everyone in her school, but she is most excited to see how her English language learners, or ELL students, utilize the classroom鈥檚 interactive features. More than 260 students out of 500 at the Riverdale, Maryland elementary school are ELL.
鈥淭his is really going to be helpful for them,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here are so many connections that are going to be made; I just think my kids are going to be better for it.鈥�
The garden may have gone up in a day, but Stuewe says the process took about a year. After applying for a partnership with REAL School Gardens, the nonprofit connected Beacon Heights with two corporate sponsors to help fund a large portion of the project.
Last May, the school鈥檚 students had an opportunity to get their hands dirty in the planning process with a garden design contest, which helped to decide all of the learning elements included in the space.
鈥淚t is a full design that feels like a classroom space,鈥� McCarty says about the learning garden, adding that there are even operational elements, such as a white board, to make it easier for teachers to hold lessons outside.
After a garden is built, REAL School Gardens sticks around for three years to continue professional and curriculum development with the teachers in its partner schools. And McCarty says the learning starts right away.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 want any pause. We get so much enthusiasm around the build, we want teachers to go straight into utilizing that learning garden and we help make that happen.鈥�
Stuewe says her school has always been active in gardening and teachers have been receptive to holding class outside, but the new learning garden is an opportunity to take that interest to the next level.
鈥淣ow I鈥檓 really excited that they鈥檒l have a place to go,鈥� she says.
