Middle school students will collaborate with community gardening experts to create a natural learning environment for their elementary school partnership. The middle schoolers interviewed the staff and students of the new elementary school, and brainstormed different ideas to beautify the new campus and to make it a safe and welcoming learning environment. An emphasis is placed on creating outdoor spaces that add a learning component opportunity to the beautification. They will: 1) add native Hawaiian shade trees to one end of an open play area, 2) add in a butterfly garden to the back side of the largest open play area, 3) create a vegetable garden that allows the elementary students to participate in and learn from, and 4) build bird boxes to encourage birds to visit the shaded areas. The middle grade students will meet weekly to work on this project and will help teachers find appropriate activities and lessons to use these outdoor spaces. In addition the middle school students will work with a group of elementary students taking the lead on their campus, serving as mentors to the elementary students.

The new elementary school is a k- 5 grade school serving 150 students from a diverse population, including a high population of Hawaiian students. It is a school that focuses on project and place based learning. The middle school team comes from the pbHTA program (a sister school to the elementary school). They will be learning how to engage in project management; learn about soil sciences, water quality, irrigation designs, and plant sciences; use math skills for planning, drawing and construction; learn to use power tools safely, and improve research skills in developing activities/lessons for the teachers. These learning opportunities meet the middle school students' standards in multiple subject areas. The efforts of the middle school students will lend to supporting the elementary students' learning standards as well.

Project will start immediately.