Lanier's Green Team Turns Courtyard Into Classroom

Sidney Lanier Middle School became the first county school to earn a national environmental group's Silver Award last year. Now teachers and students hope to one-up their status by studying the school's courtyard.

Eco-Schools USA program granted Lanier MS the Silver Award for instituting a seven-step process of environmentally sound practices, providing support for greening the curriculum and enhancing science and academic achievement.

Their steps included the beginnings of a recycling program, energy conservation steps, saving rainwater and having the students come up with their own ideas to help green the school.

This year, the school's Eco-action team is hoping to take home the highest honor, the Green Flag Award, by continuing to institute green programs benefiting the students and the environment.

A big part of that plan involves the decision to turn one of their courtyards into various ecosystems that the students could use to study.

"We have a school courtyard and I wanted to convert it to an outdoor living classroom," said Faiza Alam, a seventh-grade science teacher who heads Lanier's Eco-school program. "It connects very well with the curriculum of a seventh-grade science classroom because we talk about the ecosystem and water testing and water quality and different things we can do to improve the Chesapeake Bay and the watershed. I thought it would be great experience for the students to do it."

Jeanette Stewart, founder of the watershed protection and education organization Lands and Waters, has worked with the school and partnered with Living Classrooms of Washington D.C. to help with the project.

"We help construct wetlands, habitat restoration and storm water projects to teach students the standards of learning," Stewart said. "We spend a lot of effort trying to bring into the area diversity and reach as many ecosystems as we can. This is a great opportunity for students to go on field trips on their own property."

A small pond was already in the courtyard, but that needed some renovation. A group of Lanier students, teachers and other volunteers worked on getting it ready, setting up the first stages of different ecosystems that will be present soon.

"The water quality can be done with an eco-sponge garden and all different marshes, so the kids can see the food chain," Alam said. "That was my whole ambition and it has been a great thing for me to pursue. I was able to get some grants and got the process rolling."

Because of some issues with grading, turf was removed from the courtyard over the summer and the area was properly mulched, to prepare it for the students to get started when school began this fall.

"We have started already and the process will be ongoing," Alam said. "We have planted certain things for the fall, there will be pieces for the spring, and we are getting things up and ready."

There are many environmental opportunities for the courtyard, as plans call for a forest canopy, pollinated gardens, a sponge garden and a diversity of native plants and host habitat for different kinds of wildlife.

The living classroom is already in production with science teachers preparing lessons around the eco-systems.

"The goal is for what's being done in the classroom to support the conservation outside," Stewart said. "The lab work can be done in the classroom, raising shed or trout and then releasing them in the natural environment."

However, science teachers won't be the only ones teaching their students by using the area.

"Literature classes will be able to go in and write poetry, art classes will come and do paintings, the special education department will learn life skills of digging and planting," Alam said. "Everything is connected and all the students will get some valuable time out there."

 "We are submitting the first phase of designs to the teachers now, so the most diverse populations can be addressed and the most opportunity for lessons are created," Stewart says. "The goal is to finish this phase by the end of the fall and then begin the next phases in the spring, to add another ecosystem and enhance what we have done already."