An industrial mining community transforms to include outdoor learning spaces
NATRONA, Pa. — Highlands School District serves the community of Natrona, an old company town about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh’s city center and a reflection of its industrial past as the headquarters of the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company, begun in 1850.
The area has a long history of heavy industry and pollution. In 2008, the air quality in the area was listed among the worst in the nation.
Fortunately things are changing. Among the initiatives transforming the community are Highlands School District’s new Outdoor Learning Space for high school students.
Rosalie, pictured below holding a box of vegetables in front of her marigolds, is allowed to harvest food from the garden several times a week. As a result, Rosalie and her family—who are working to make healthier food choices—now enjoy a regular family activity they’ve lovingly named “Tomato Time.”
Many students have taken bouquets of flowers to their homes and favorite teachers, while other students have cooked with the vegetables they’ve grown and harvested from the gardens.
Research suggests that outdoor learning experiences are linked to improved mental and physical health, enhanced academic engagement and performance, stronger social-emotional skills and increased creativity and focus.
Included in our greenspace are five structures: four greenhouses and one aquaponics “shed.” In the aquaponics unit, we have a 200-gallon fish tank that is a part of a growing system where we are raising coy fish and tilapia that filters nutrients to several plants that are growing.
Surrounding those buildings are 12 aluminum raised beds that students were responsible for constructing, and filling with soil and compost. We raised well over 100 seedlings in the aquaponics system and greenhouses and successfully transplanted them at the end of the school year where they flourished in the garden beds throughout the summer and into the new school year. Our dream was for students to return to school and be welcomed by an abundant “food and flower forest”. We will continue working in the space throughout the year as we learn about the many important phases in a yearly agricultural cycle.
The primary courses that use the outdoor learning space are new courses called Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Human Impacts and Sustainability and Water Chemistry. However, several different classes have already made use of the space in a variety of ways including different summer school programs.
These outcomes are also why the Grable Foundation is funding much of Highlands’ work in outdoor learning and supporting a huge surge of interest in outdoor learning, including Remake Learning’s Moonshot Grants of up to $50,000 for creative outdoor learning projects.
“The Highlands School District near Pittsburgh is one of several Western Pennsylvania school districts leading a global trend – one that invites students toward a deeper understanding of the natural world and an active, engaged role in shaping the environment around us,” said Gregg Behr, Executive Director of the Grable Foundation.
“Investing in efforts like this helps expand access to the outdoor learning experiences that ever learner deserves.”
