SPANISH FORT – Students at Spanish Fort Elementary School (SFES) took part in building their own outdoor classroom site with seven living habitats including a sensory garden, pollinator garden, frog pond, bog and more.

Aside from two days of preparations and adding benches and signs, volunteers and students built the classroom all in one day. Kelly Knapp, STEAM coach at SFES, said the outdoor classroom will be open to all students at the elementary school and the "community on the weekends."

This outdoor classroom has been in the works "since last May" and "it's finally here." Knapp said she is excited for the students to use this resource.

"It's not a playground but a learning environment," she said. "We call it our garden but it's truly an outdoor classroom."

Knapp said the project was put together in partnership with the Alabama Outdoor Classroom program, a division of the Alabama Wildlife Federation, which recently purchased the 5 Rivers Delta Resource Center.

Tyler Burgener, with the Alabama Outdoor Classroom program, was on site managing each component from digging holes, planting plants, scattering mulch and stomping in the bog. She said this space will serve as an "extension of the indoor classroom."

"This is going to be a living laboratory where the kids can actually get hands-on experience with subjects and topics that they otherwise would learn inside," Burgener said, "like metamorphosis, pollination, decomposition and stuff like that."

The outdoor classroom will also extend the wildlife habitat adjacent to the school, Burgener said. This will create a living space for pollinators, birds, "probably some small mammals" and "maybe a scaly friend every now and then."

Apart from sensory plants like lamb's ear and rosemary, all 30 plant species are native to the area. Burgener said the non-natives are not invasive, rather "harmless non-natives" that will "be happy" in the climate.

According to Burgener, research has shown that "hands-on, inquiry-based learning" helps students to grasp "complex topics" and "retain information longer."

She said, "The educational goal out here is for the teachers to have a space to teach what they already have to teach anyway but be able to do it outside and more effectively."

Knapp said the project would not be possible without the parent and grandparent volunteers bringing in companies like Alabama Power, Ponder Landscaping Co. and Pelican Roofing to help with the groundwork, irrigation set-ups and prep digging. Materials and funding were received from Gulf Coast RC&D.