A new outdoor learning area has stimulated pupils’ interest in natural science and helped raise their environmental awareness.
The Pewee Valley Junior Academy and surrounding schools in Oldham County and Louisville Communities were the lucky choice of our colleagues of Industrial Finishes in Eastpoint, Louisville to support the creation of an ‘Outdoor Classroom’.
10-15 volunteering employees together with their families helped to create the conditions for construction of a Council House, clearing the area for a Tree Trail and the planting of an Ozone Garden.
School age children in grades K-12 natural sciences as well as other members of the community have been provided with exceptional outdoor education enhancing their interest in natural sciences by hands-on applied lessons as well as environmental awareness. The volunteering employees spent several Saturdays planting special plants that have a positive effect on the ozone layer, in the specially created Ozone Garden.
Also the students themselves were involved in the choosing of the species, planning of the landscape and design of the garden and helped with the planting of native plants that will give details on the ozone of the day by reading their ‘reaction’ to the air.
With support from the Community Program the building materials for the ‘Outdoor Classroom’ could be purchased. The constructed Council House is a seven-side open building that can seat up to 120 people. The Classroom is located at the entrance of a Tree Identification Trail running over 600 feet of the wooded parameter of the PVJA School that was also prepared by the Akzo Nobel volunteers.
‘The project has provided exceptional outdoor learning, enhancing pupils’ interest in natural science through hands-on lessons, as well as environmental awareness’, said a spokesman.
‘Ozone gardening is relatively new, with the first established garden in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, so at Industrial Finishes we were very proud to contribute to this worthwhile initiative.’