School's courtyard garden seen as respite from MCAS

Whether it's adding and subtracting fractions or honing reading comprehension for the MCAS, William Mitchell elementary school students will do it this year with a green thumb.

For years, administrators at the Needham school grappled with what to do with the 11,424 square feet of unkempt grass and bushes in the courtyard. The space was virtually unused as students and teachers remained sequestered from Mother Nature.

At the same time, the administrators and Parent Teacher Council were searching for ways to engage students caught up in an increasingly structured academic environment.

Mitchell's solution is the Outdoor Learning Center. The brainchild of Cambridge landscape designer Alice Evans, it is designed to teach students about eco-friendly energy sources, organic gardening, and the role of nature in mental and physical health.

In the courtyard, a stone path curls around the small outdoor amphitheater and fish pond. Growing in the woodland shade garden are oakleaf hydrangeas, ferns, and arrowwood viburnum, a shrub used by Native Americans to make shafts for their arrows.

The ''edible" garden's blueberries, mulberries, and herbs offer kindergartners lessons in the five senses. Purple coneflowers, lavender, bee balm, and bayberries entice azures and tiger swallowtails in the butterfly sanctuary, located outside a window-lined corridor.

But the Outdoor Learning Center is more than a tranquil escape from spelling drills. It is also a forum to stimulate children's imaginations, said principal Mike Schwinden, who, along with his two high school children and parent volunteers, spent much of his summer mowing the courtyard lawn and planting 70 shrubs and flowers.

''In a world of MCAS, I'm so proud our school created this," said Martha Bassett, standing among the spiny globe thistles in the butterfly sanctuary. She served as the cochairwoman of the yearlong Outdoor Learning Center project along with Judy Chin, a Parent Teacher Council member. Both have sons in the fourth grade.

Over the last year, students, parents, and faculty raised $77,000 and transformed what Bassett called a ''weed-choked eyesore" into a ''living laboratory."

Solar panels designed by students of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering power a fountain.

The garden also has a cold frame for propagating plants such as spinach in the late fall.

Bassett and Chin brainstormed with teachers about ways in which the garden could complement lesson plans.

The garden ''is woven into their day," said Bassett of the students. ''It's not a big deal like a museum field trip."

Fifth-graders studying hibernation will research what the goldfish living in the pond will need to survive.

Second-graders will create a Zen garden during their eorld cultures unit.

Third-graders, who study the history and geography of Needham, will grow vegetables and donate the produce to shelters.

Physical education students will practice yoga on the amphitheater stage.

Fourth-graders in Kathryn D'Addesio's class will study the earth's revolution and rotation using the sundial inside the butterfly garden. And soon, D'Addesio will start researching healing herbs used by Native Americans and early Colonists so the children can grow them in their designated plant beds as part of social studies class.

In winter, D'Addesio said, the students will trek into the courtyard with magnifying glasses to observe snowflake patterns.

''There's nothing wrong with putting on your boots and going out to the learning center," D'Addesio said.

Third-grade teacher Jane Shilalie plans to use the solar energy panels as a teaching tool and is mapping out geometry and fractions scavenger hunts that will be graded like quizzes.

''My greatest fear is that we'll be bumping into each other," Shilalie said.