May 7, 2025
May 3 was a big day for students from the environmental interest seminar by Swansfield Elementary School (SES) and for the entire student community. In cooperation with representatives of the Community Ecology Institute (CEI) Nourishing Gardens Program, the seminar students – who call themselves “Green Beautz” – were installed a new classroom outdoors at the school together with other SES students, volunteers and representatives of CEI.
The classroom outdoors is the highlight of the work that began in autumn 2024 when the teachers Laine Malcotti and Tara Diventi applied for a grant of 10,000 US dollars from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and include a grant from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation with CEI to learn to learn the topics in which Habitat loss and rainwater drainage in the Chesapopere region in the vicinity of Haoswasser and will authorize benefits in the Chesapower region.
In order to meet the conditions of the grant, the students in Malcotti and Diventis Seminar were examined with the task of how they could have a positive effect on the environment. At the beginning they created observation data on outflow/erosion, transport, vegetation and biological diversity on the SES campus. In collaboration with experts from Malcotti, Diventi and Cei nourished gardens and then took part in group discussions, journaling exercises and presentations to analyze their data.
This data has shown that SES is a “very environmentally friendly school”, Malcotti says with a few exceptions: Transport (the students found that almost all SES teachers drive their own vehicles to school) and the lack of local plants (the students found that a large part of the grass was born on the SES campus in England and does not put on the bond of local dust).
Together with CEI Liaison Loni Cohen, who shared examples of ways to respond to these results, the students opted for the idea of building a classroom outdoors.
“We imagined a place where the students can learn, the community can gather, people can eat for lunch, almost like a small park,” notes Malcotti. “We also believed that the classroom would be useful to be helpful to our garden, plants for pollinators and the environment.”
In the following months, the students worked on identifying the layout and the location of the new classroom as well as the locals they wanted to plant. At the beginning of this month, all parts of the outdoor classroom project came together. The new classroom outdoors has magnolia trees, blueberry bushes, local plants and an archway. In the future, more plants, shrubs and a pavilion will be added.
“It was a really student project,” says Malcotti. “From research that looks at data, creates a plan, with which design helps, to installation, the students were involved on every step of the way.”
“The outdoor classroom improves the SES campus by offering a dynamic learning environment that promotes creativity, practical experience and a deeper connection to nature. It also promotes the well-being of the students by promoting movement, fresh air and a break from the traditional interior,” adds SES-Princal Anthony Esposito.