Amy Parks-Heath Elementary School unveils new Outdoor Learning Center

ROCKWALL, TX – November 30, 2020 — This fall, Amy Parks-Heath Elementary School celebrated the official unveiling of its new Outdoor Learning Center with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

The center creates all kinds of outdoor learning opportunities for students. With an outdoor classroom, kids can help seed, water, observe, record and harvest the garden beds and vegetable patches. They can track weather patterns with a weather station, weigh and record the daily harvest with a weigh station, tag and track butterflies in the butterfly garden, paint a picture of how a plant changes during its life cycle, and much more.

The OLC compliments the APHE Outdoor Garden, where kiddos can experience all the wonderful benefits shown by outdoor learning studies, including decreased stress levels, increased motivation, improved memory, enhanced communication skills and increased self-reliance.

“It’s a dream come true,” said L.B. Vestal, APHE Outdoor Garden coordinator. “There are so many benefits to students learning outdoors. Particularly now in the pandemic, it’s so important to be outside and be able to social distance.”

Several years ago, APHE received a small grant from Healthy Zone Schools thanks to Janice Longino, the school’s former Physical Education teacher. With help from parent volunteers, Longino built an outdoor garden for the school with the grant money. They collected donations from local businesses to make the garden a home for students in a small outdoor area at school.

Soon other volunteers got involved in the garden, including Vestal, who became an inspiration to both students and volunteers alike with her love for gardening and outdoor learning. Michelle Mitchell, an officer of educational programs on the APHE PTO, and Vestal began coordinating their efforts with teachers and staff, and soon the idea to create an outdoor center at APHE was born.

Former APHE Principal Megan Smith saw the benefits that the garden brought to the school, and brought up the idea at a PTO board meeting of building an outdoor center which all classrooms and teachers could use in their learning. The OLC Committee got in touch with APHE dad and owner of D&D Construction and Landscape Management Donnie Watts, who brought on fellow APHE dad Michael Satterfield with Parkview Homes TX, to manage the construction of the OLC.

Over the course of two years, the committee raised the funds needed to build the OLC through the APHE Annual Boosterthon fundraiser, a silent auction and an engraved brick campaign. They held a groundbreaking earlier this spring, culminating in the ribbon cutting in October to commemorate the completed construction of the OLC.

“The many benefits of outdoor learning would be wonderful under normal circumstances, but with the current pandemic, they are even more important for our kids,” Mitchell said. “We cannot wait to see what more opportunities the new Outdoor Learning Center brings to partner with our community.

“I think one of our fifth graders said it best in his thank you note to our sponsors: ‘Thank you for building this awesome Outdoor Learning Center. I think we will all love it very much. You guys are really heroes.’”

Story and photos by Austin Wells.

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