Terry O'Day
Outdoor Classrooms
In 2015, I began working directly with local schools to support the adoption of education for sustainability practices across the district. My approach has been from two different directions; one as a community member and the other as a university professor.
As a member of the EdenAcres Environmental Education NPO, I help to develop funding for a full time School Garden Coordinator to overseeand support the development of outdoor classrooms, experiential curricula, and professional development for teachers at FGSD
schools. The Garden Coordinator works directly with students and teachers to provide targeted outdoor experiences across grades and
disciplines; provides professional development activities for teachers interested in bringing their students outdoors; and facilitates garden site development with the help of volunteers and staff. As a board member, I also support EA staff and help secure funding to support site development. I also meet with school district administration and staff to work out logistics and contracts between the district and EdenAcres as we transition responsibility for School Garden Coordinator funding from EA to the FGSD.
As a faculty member at Pacific University, I've developed a number of courses with civic engagement components that connect students to local K-12 schools in a variety of ways. Most typically, the Pacific students serve K-12 teacher-clients by helping to develop master plans for outdoor classrooms that address specific goals laid out by teachers. These plans then form the basis for on-site service where students work with the School Garden Coordinator to implement the master plans developed in previous years. With the help of Pacific students, outdoor classroom development is ongoing at Harvey Clarke and Cornelius elementary schools, Niel Armstrong Middle School, and CALC high school.
2019: Cornelius Elementary
Project Description
Cornelius Elementary School serves 295 K-4 students. Their master plan calls for a food garden area with natural barriers to minimize distractions from the playground and the road. Also planned are large gathering and small study areas, pollinator gardens, and tool storage.
​
2018- Present: Neil Armstrong Middle School
Project Description
Neil Armstrong Middle School serves 830 7th and 8th graders. Their master plan calls for work tables to seat 35, small group seating areas, a gathering area, an outdoor cooking area, dye, herb, and pollinator gardens, a biochar kiln, interactive water features, tool storage, and garden beds. The school has a garden cub that meets to work in the garden every Thursday afternoon.
This project is published on the Permaculture Institute of North America website as a finalist in their national design competition
​
2017-Present: Harvey Clarke Elementary School
Project Description
Harvey Clarke Elementary serves 502 K-4 students, Their plan calls for garden beds, worktables for 25, small group work areas,, a trellis/gateway, fruit trees, raspberries, and strawberries. Two of the teachers in the school have taken on a leadership role in organizing garden development and promoting outdoor learning. Their example has inspired several other teachers to request garden beds to be located outside their classroom doors as well.
​
2016-Present: Community Alternative Learning Center
Project Description
​
The CALC site is the most challenging of all our sites. The school is located in an industrial zone and has very little outdoor space that can be used by students. The available space is 75'x50' of asphalt that is used for recreation and lunch breaks. Students were heavily involved in the design phase of their school improvement and stated a need for leafy greens, a science lab, and interaction with animals. Their solution was an aquaponics lab and we have been working through various iterations of the build since then. Pacific students have been involved with building structures, calculating water volumes, and writing grants to purchase the solar array and pumps needed to run the system, since the site has no access to electricity.
​
2015-2016: Pacific University Early Learning Community
Project Description
An outdoor learning/play space for the Early Learning Community, a school in the College of Education at Pacific University.
​
Role in the Community
Aside from providing young children with a rich and engaging outdoor learning environment, the project's placement in the College of Education will offer opportunities for pre-service educators to practice working with youth in an outdoor environment. These experiences will make teachers more likely to include outdoor activities in the classrooms where they will work after graduation and help to mainstream outdoor learning as a viable methodology for achieving academic standards.
​
My role
My role is in support of a colleague in the College of Education who envisioned the classroom and needed help visualizing it for the administrators who would approve it. In addition to providing 3D illustrations that made it easy for administrators to imagine the classroom on the campus grounds, I involved my students as a way to expand the palette of ideas to select from during the design phase. The project has been approved and I continue to serve as a member of the design team and as an interpretive intermediary between teachers and the design/engineer professionals who have been hired to install the project.
​