Students at St. Mary Catholic Secondary School in Pickering, Ont., are looking forward to the launch this fall of the school's long-awaited unique outdoor classroom.   

In the works since pre-COVID days, the classroom was completed near the end of last school years and is ready to be used for learning. The labour-intensive process allowed roughly 30 students to design, build and maintain the outdoor classroom over the past four years.

May 15 marked the final building day for their outdoor learning space, a day that saw students from Grades 9-12 bring the ongoing project right up to the finish line as the St. Mary community approached its summer break on a high note. 

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“The middle of May marked nearly four years down the road from the start of this project and now we are almost ready for the grand opening,” said Joel Pisani, the curriculum chair of business, computers and technology studies and facilitator of the Outdoor Education Leadership Team at St. Mary. “We are aiming for an opening in the fall of this year where the area will be available to sign out and hopefully meet the goal of extending learning outside of the traditional classroom setting.” 

It is a process years in the making. St. Mary's previously experimented with outdoor education events and trips, including a collaboration with nearby Durham College that saw students build miniature outdoor greenhouses. Following these experiences, St. Mary began exploring the possibility of a fully functional outdoor learning space for its students. 

“A lot of outdoor spaces might just be an area with a couple of rocks which can be fantastic for a more elementary-based project, but we wanted to go next level and build upon the many greenhouses that we had built pre-COVID,” said Pisani.

At the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the school was offered a large shipping container from the City of Pickering, the Learning Innovation Fund for Teachers (LIFT) and Durham Catholic District School Board Facilities Services. It wasn’t until 2022 that students got to work on the project that would span years of their high school experience. 

“We cleaned up our original greenhouses, built new garden beds, completed interiors on the inside and walls on the outside of the structure, planned how the seating might work, we even got a gazebo with a functional roof put in,” Pisani said. “It is self-powered with solar panels at the top and it will have a projector so lectures can be given. The idea is to create a space that can be grown and expanded on every year and to include everyone, whether it is growing the garden with the science department or the chaplain using it for retreats and Indigenous studies.” 

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With September tentatively slated for launch as students and staff get back into the flow of things, questions were raised about the structure's ability to operate year-round. Pisani said the team is ready to make adjustments as needed. 

“As long as I am here, it is always going to be something that we are working on together as the outdoor-ed leadership team. Health and safety are a priority so you cannot just throw a space heater in during the winter. I am hoping to have strong success with sign-outs in spring and fall and while I think it will be difficult to sell the space in the winter right now, we are always moving forward and always evolving so that could change.” 

While goals are still constantly being met or reassessed as the impending opening approaches, students are starting to see the evolution of the classroom and the lessons learned that go beyond putting shovels to soil. 

“I have really enjoyed seeing the work that I have done over time because when I graduate and come back I can say to students, ‘Look at this, I helped build that. See those plants? I planted those with my own hands,' ” said U.J. Lachica, a Grade 11 member of the outdoor education team. “I also got to make new friends as this type of experience forced me to talk to people as we help each other. I recommend something like this to all students because you learn a lot of skills without even realizing it. I learned how to be more confident in myself and how to be more of a leader.” 

Not only is Pisani happy to see the classroom itself grow over the years, but how his students did as well. 

“To me, seeing (each student’s) work ethic and seeing them take on their individual responsibilities while still working as a team is what I'm super proud of. Whether it is the construction, landscaping, gardening, technical or planning element, there have been so many learning skills offered for an extracurricular that it allows everyone to find something best suited to them.” 

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With traditional classrooms filling up once again, the Outdoor Education Leadership Team is thankful that this year’s back-to-school period will mark the addition of another learning space, one the team constructed. 

“We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and so it is rewarding to finally see what we have been doing for so many years be completed right in front of us,” Pisani said.