Though students are still on summer break, some parents are already busy at Anna L. Lingelbach Elementary School.
The group of volunteers is finishing construction on the school’s new outdoor classroom in front of the old McIlhenny Mansion above Lincoln Drive. Starting this fall, the workspace will be open to all students and teachers to use for homework and classes, the school’s principal, Dr. Bethany I. McCabe, said. The date for the grand opening is tentatively set for September.
“It is very exciting for me, especially for an urban school where you rarely see anything like this,” McCabe said in a virtual interview. “We really are taking education to another level by having this experience for our students.”
The roughly $20,000 project was funded through donations, and the funds were raised by the Friends of Lingelbach, a parent and alumni group, said Michael Hunt, a parent volunteer who spearheaded the construction with parents Emily Demarest and Cindy Skema. The classroom spans 60 by 50 feet and will hold seating for up to 32 people, he said. More than 30 volunteers helped them replace a dilapidated sunken garden with the outdoor classroom, located at the southern corner of the school’s track and soccer field.
Pitching in
Demarest has been working at the grounds two to three times a week since April. Hunt said he and other parents have put jobs on hold to make time for the project. Others volunteer their hours after school or work. Some of the students assisted with smaller tasks such as digging and moving small equipment.
One day in the spring, Hunt recalled, more than 20 people showed up after school with wheelbarrows and shovels to help move stone to the construction site. “It was inspiring. There’s differences between people dreaming and actually having a community-supported thing. That day was proof of everyone’s commitment to doing this,” he said.
The group also received outside help. Hunt said Lisa Waddell, the former principal of Lingelbach, helped ensure everyone had enough resources to build the classroom. The project also received donations from local businesses including Weavers Way Co-op and Germantown Bicycles.
The space is now transformed. Its stone border has been repaired and the ground is covered in rock-lined pathways and playground asphalt. Pine trees sprout from the ground. Wire fences are decorated with green and pink yarn art. There’s a chalkboard and compost bins for the classroom’s garden. And sitting in the northeast section of the classroom are two human-sized cylinders, which were there before construction began. Demarest and Hunt believe they’re remnants of a civil engineering project.
To preserve the history of the space, the volunteers kept the perimeter of the original garden fountain and reused all the bluestone found at the site to build a pathway to the classroom’s entrance.
That morning, Demarest and Hunt printed a sign into the concrete mold where the fountain formerly was located. It read “Parkgate 1910,” the name of John Dexter McIlhenny’s mansion and the year it was built on the grounds.
“There was a definite drive to make sure that we paid homage to the history, but also reuse materials that were found in space as much as possible,” Demarest said.
Fun for everyone
Parents and school officials wanted to add an outdoor classroom that was easily accessible and could be used by students of all ages, McCabe said.
The school’s existing outdoor classroom is located at the end of a walking path behind the school and is used for its Forest Days outdoor education program, an outdoor learning programs for the lower grades. The newly-created second outdoor classroom will benefit the older children who have grown up in the Forest Days program.
“It was just meant to be sort of an easier way in for the older kids, because they’re really a little bit tighter on time just in terms of the class periods, and it was also to sort of encourage the students and staff that are less inclined to want to go outside,” Skema said.
One 2017 study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found outdoor learning enhances students’ mental health and academic performance.
“Everything we do at Lingelbach is for the students. And I do believe that having classes outside can help with social (and) emotional well-being. Being outside and being among the trees helps with that,” McCabe said.
Demarest, whose son is an incoming fifth-grader at Lingelbach, said the Forest Days program has reduced students’ fears of the outdoors and helped increase her son’s curiosity about the world.
“Even when he was in second grade, he’d come out here and discover new plants he’d never seen before and would look them up when he got home. There’s so much to learn from the environment,” she said.
On the morning of Aug. 8, when the in-person interview with Demarest and Hunt wrapped up, the parents didn’t get in their cars and leave. They remained to work outside in the classroom. There was a lot more left to do before the school year begins.
Abby Weiss is an environmental reporter for the Chestnut Hill Local and a Report for America corps member. She can be reached at Abby@chestnuthilllocal.com.
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