local educators to understand students’ personal needs, identify and/or marshal resources, and meet non-local (and local) policy prescriptions. The Outdoor Classroom Project grew out of an idea to address a number of community challenges associated with Alabama’s greatest economic export—food. Grandma’s cooking aside, by food we mean agriculture. Agriculture is Alabama’s largest industry with approximately 50,000 farms covering 9 million acres and producing more than $1 billion in exports (ALFA 2010). Our experiment with food is slightly less ambitious but no less organic.
The Setting 242
Our project is set in Opelika, Alabama, the county seat of Lee County with a population of approximately 27,000 (U.S. Census 2010). With 5,000-plus school-aged children, Opelika City Schools reflect the area’s higher-than-state-average ethnic diversity, with 43.5 percent African American students compared to the state’s 26.2 percent, 1.7 percent Asian American compared to the state’s 1.2 percent, and 4.4 percent Latino American compared to the state’s 3.9 percent. In recent years, Opelika has experienced a cultural and economic renaissance of sorts. The historic downtown business district has been revived after decades of stagnation, and Opelika boasts the
area’s largest shopping area. Despite its strengths, more residents of Opelika live in poverty (22.1 percent) than the state average (17.1 percent).
Our Project—Year One: Sean Forbes My son, Moe, and his buddy Jake (son of our project’s community coordinator) enjoy school more than most. But we couldn’t tell you how many times they have complained about being academically bored. “We do the same thing every day,” they say. “Math and reading,” Moe says. “Yup, at our desks and in groups, math and reading,” Jake adds, shaking his head.
As educators, we don’t like the situation any more than our kids do. We bemoan the fact that accountability movements have marginalized other content areas in favor of language arts and mathematics about as much as we cringe at the idea that children do not spend more time learning outdoors. So we installed a garden. Uncounted generations before us and the modern research we read today tell us that using the environment as a classroom provides a valuable, real-life context through which math, language arts, sciences, and other subject matters can be taught (Conroy and Walker 2000; Edney and Murphy 2010; Parr, Edwards and Leising 2006, 2008, 2009). Research literature also suggests that school gardens have the added benefit of promoting nutrition. Students who participate in school garden projects tend to eat more fruits and vegetables and, in the process, are physically active (Robinson et al. 2009). With this in mind, we approached Southview Primary School’s principal at the end of first grade and asked if we, as parents, could revitalize an unused courtyard. The 80-foot by 30-foot space opened into a grass lawn that covered half the area. The other was filled with overgrown crepe myrtles, butterfly bushes, and weeds. Other courtyards in