Sixth grade teacher Jennifer Ferrara, of Charles G. Emery School of the Buena Park School District, applied and was the recipient of the Lowe’s School Grant in the amount of $5000. The grant was to create an Outdoor Learning Environment (OLE). Ferrara assigned the task of Project Based Learning activity to include the sixth grade GATE students at Emery Elementary School. Twenty-eight sixth grade GATE students received their task, and met weekly for six months during the 2017-2018 school year.
Students divided up into five groups where they used their 21st century skills of collaboration, critical thinking, creativity and communication. The students drew up blueprints for their OLE design, had to stay within a $5000 budget, and presented their outdoor learning environment keynote presentations to Assistant Manager of Lowe’s David DeLaRocha, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Ramon Miramontes, School Board Member Tharwa Rabah, Principal Julie Linnecke, and other district personnel. The students included research and facts about brain research and how oxygen and stimulation enhances learning. They also enjoyed sneaking into their presentations how being inside the classroom all day long can be boring. One group even included Orange County tax into their accounting.
The secret was that the students did not know that Ferrara had already received the grant. They thought that they were in the running, among other schools, and that it was up to them—their research, their ideas and their presentations—to decided whether they would win or not. The students nervously practiced their presentations up until the day before, and they nailed them! Ferrara was so impressed with their confidence and speaking skills as they turned this challenge into a real life learning experience.
Throughout the year, Ferrara had been meeting with La Habra Lowe’s manager Jim Phillips and DeLaRocha, and coordinating with district maintenance director Mike Anderson, to finalize the plans for planting day, which took place on June 21.
Beginning at 8 in the morning, all hands were on deck. Students, family members, five district maintenance employees, ten Lowe’s volunteers including both Phillips and DeLaRocha, and Ferrara along with her colleague Jon Christensen, set out for a bigger than imaginable task. To the relief of Lowe’s, the district pulled through with an auger, mechanical tamper and bulldozer and had prepped the area the week before. But this was the students’ assignment, and they wanted to be as hands-on as possible, in transforming this approximately 1800 square foot area.
So $780 of decomposed granite was shoveled by students, six redwood planting beds were built, a hill was terraced with railroad ties, two 12-foot-high mulberry trees were planted, 40 bags of planting soil and mulch was spread, 150 plants were planted, stepping stones laid, and benches varnished. It was a long, hot, arduous day.
When asked what she learned, twelve-year-old GATE student Noor Francisco said, “It definitely takes a lot more work than I thought to make things happen. It was a very valuable lesson….I was very proud of myself and everyone else who put in all the work.” Francisco said she enjoyed the process of getting involved in a Project Based Learning activity.
Ferrara made sure everyone kept hydrated, and a barbecue lunch was devoured by famished workers.
The work ethic of everyone was an impressive display of fortitude. Building an OLE from the ground up in one day was an impossible task, but with the amalgamation of the school, students and community joining together, could this only be possible. This Project Based Learning activity taught students the amount of diligence that is required for an idea to be accomplished, from its simplest beginnings to becoming a finished reality. This Project Based Learning activity proves that hard work, teamwork and grit still goes a long way in the world.
