Growing Interest in Science

Forget the cramped desks and dreary chalkboard lessons. This science classroom doesn’t even have walls.

Instead, green trees, open air and vibrant flowers are the stuff of Valencia Elementary’s outdoor science center, where textbook lessons seamlessly blend with natural surroundings.

Students in the weekly hands-on science program take class beneath a shady cloth canopy outdoors. They need only glance around to see the butterflies, sunflowers and other organisms they study in their botany and biology labs.

In this small patch of green that sprouted from dirt just over a year ago, every rock, leaf and insect is a lesson.

When the breeze ruffles a student’s work sheets, science specialist Chris Fox seizes the opportunity to discuss wind. Last year, a compost pile sparked a lesson about moisture and heat.

“Almost everything that happens here is science,” she said.

Next fall, the school plans to add a weather station and greenhouse to bring meteorology lessons to life.

Fox also wants to section off “ecosystem” areas to mimic weather conditions and plant life native to rain forests, deserts and water.

“Most anything I can do outside, I do,” Fox said. “They enjoy it, and it gives them that freedom to talk about what they’re doing without having to worry about disturbing other classrooms.”

During one science lesson last week, the Laguna Hills students read worksheets about plant classification before collecting their own leaf specimens.

They didn’t have to go far.

Most picked through the four main garden boxes, plucking leaves from the flowering “butterfly garden” designed to attract insects, and from the planters with vines climbing above their heads.

Others went to the sunflowers lining a fence and to banana palms sprouting beside a recently installed storage shed.

As these students studied the leaves for texture, shape and color, a class of younger children released home-raised butterflies into the flowers. “Goodbye, butterflies,” they called.

It’s not uncommon for teachers to plant flowers or read to their students in the green square, Fox said. “It’s just a special place that’s not just for science,” she said. “There are not many other places to go and sit. It’s more of a real comfortable environment on campus.”

That wasn’t the case just a little while ago.

“This was a little dirt plot a year and a half ago and now it’s quite developed,” said Principal Michelle Vaught.

Parent and student volunteers, private donations and a funding boost from the school’s Marin-Finn Foundation brought the space to life.

Next year, the school hopes to create rain-forest temperatures in the new greenhouse and a desert environment on the dry, hot slope bordering the square, giving children a close look at different ecosystems, Fox said.

A waterfall and small pool may also be built to teach about life under water. By next month, the school plans to have the $1,500 weather station--shaped much like an elaborate iron weather vane--installed to measure temperature, barometric pressure and wind.

Once it’s in place, students will spend more time outside observing firsthand the weather conditions they learn about in class.

And that’s a plus for fifth-grader Sarah Tmori, who said she enjoys the outdoor classroom--most of the time.

“When it’s really hot,” she said, “I don’t like coming out.”