PEWAUKEE — In a true team effort, Horizon Elementary students, local businesses and Pewaukee High School construction students lent a hand to create Horizon’s brand-new Hammock Garden. The project was led by third-grade teacher Emily Jasinowski who presented along with students during the April 28 Pewaukee School Board meeting.
“A Hammock Garden is an outdoor learning space for learning, for students to be a part of nature while enjoying their love for learning,” Jasinowski said.
The garden has 25 hammocks which are attached to wooden posts for the entire class to swing and enjoy their reading experience outside.
“It’s a great way to make our school unique and creatively enhance the learning experience at Horizon,” Jasinowski said.
Real-life learning experiences
Colleen Rooney, learning coach at Horizon, said the project was started in February and students were asked to think about what a hammock garden could look like. Students factored in questions about storing the hammocks, shade location and other elements. Students worked in all of their classes to come up with designs and think of the most efficient way that they could arrange the hammocks in the space and in the best, cost-effective way.
Students had a big hand in designing the ambience and aesthetics of the garden.
Students used Makerspace in the classroom to design different layouts.
“We also talked a little about having spaces that would be accessible to students (who) might have mobility issues,” Rooney said.
The students and teachers also discussed having a little library or a rock garden.
The beauty of the project was that students had real-life learning experiences. Jasinowski told The Freeman about the math problems kids would solve that dealt with the project. They looked at the budget, material costs and other aspects that they would use in real life.
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Arlo Jasinowski, Emily’s son, said during the school board meeting that students took turns trying out the different possible designs for the space.
“One challenge we faced was to use fewer posts to allow more traffic flow. We also wanted to include a handicap accessible hammock so the hammock garden is universally designed for learning,” Arlo said.
Naitik Agarwal, a third grader, said using math was a plus. “I love math. In the planning phase of the hammock garden is full of numbers, calculations, and measurements. As you can imagine, I was very excited we had a chance to use our math skills to problem solve in real-life scenarios,” Agarwal said.
Jasinowski told The Freeman that students also used their writing skills to create messages to local businesses to ask them to consider donating and writing thank-you notes to people.
Everyone is all in
It wasn’t just Horizon students but also construction students at Pewaukee High School who pitched in. Jasinowski said they helped plot out where the posts were going to go for the project.
Parents also helped with donating books, hammocks and money for the project. The Pewaukee Parent Teacher Organization gifted the project $1,000 from a Pewaukee grant.
Jasinowski also was grateful to the larger community. “We Energies, Wellenstein & Sons, CG Schmidt, Sebert Landscape, Natural Solutions, Pewaukee School District (PTO, Christie Johnson, John Stangler), and Amy Schoenemann. This project would not have been possible without their help,” she said.
Thanks was given to the ongoing construction at PHS, the project was given support with installing pillars, landscaping the area, and even planting a tree. Every Horizon student also contributed by decorating a rock, now placed in the entry planter to welcome visitors.
“This was a true team effort,” Jasinowski said.