Building an outdoor classroom

1. Determine your team.

Outdoor space planning should involve a wide variety of stakeholders including parents, teachers, grounds crew or custodians, administrators, students and community members.

2. Determine your goals.

Working together, the team should determine the goal of the new space. Do you want more of a natural playground with climbing logs and digging areas? Do you want a natural classroom with a weather station, native plants and composting station? Do you want a garden focused on teaching food production and farm-to-school practices? Or, do you want a combination of all? Determining this will determine what goes into your classroom.

3. Determine your space.

Decide where your new outdoor classroom will go. Make sure you have cleared this decision with all school and district administrators before you move on. Having a dedicated space provides an important distinction between your outdoor classroom, the playground and open fields. Determining the location and size of your outdoor classroom space will determine the features you can have in your space.

4. Begin laying out your design.

Print or draw a large map of your area (ideally, to scale). Thinking back to your goals, determine what features your space must have, what would be nice to have and what is not necessary. View photos of various essential and optional features.

5. Determine plan phases.

Depending on the size of your space, you may not likely be able to complete all aspects of your space at one time or in one year. Plan for several phases.

6. Seek funding.

Although you can rely on parent support and many projects can be completed for free or fairly inexpensively, you will likely need some source of funding. Look to your PTO, local business, school fundraisers and grants.

7. Have fun and use your outdoor classroom!

Although creating an outdoor classroom can be challenging, it is well worth your time and effort. But, once you have it, don’t forget to use it.