Our school, Children of St. Martha, currently has a non-functioning outdoor space. We would like to see this area become an outdoor community learning space. We will use the money to create a sustainable outdoor space that will function for the life of the school. We envision three stages to this project: clean-up, furnishing and staging, and utilization.
Clean up will consist of hardworking staff cleaning this area and removing storage and garbage that has built up. Furnishing and staging will include purchasing outdoor furniture (cushions, chairs, planters, etc.) that will allow and entire classroom to participate in learning activities. The final phase of utilization will include inviting community partners to create intergenerational connections with our student body. This would include people such as residents of Columbia Assisted Living, elders from our Blackfoot community, members of St. Martha's Parish, along with others. Once this space is fully functional we envision using it as an outdoor classroom space. We are excited about the potential for science, literacy, and numeracy projects to occur in an outdoor setting.
Research has shown that spending time outdoors increases ones happiness and productivity. We believe that an outdoor space will improve the wellness of both students and staff of Children of St. Martha.
We are excited about the project and look forward to the hard work we plan on in investing in this classroom area.