Cultivating Kids:  Mountainview's Green Classroom

Located in the campus courtyard, Mountainview's Outdoor Classroom will be a living, growing, breathing open-air classroom filled with various plants, insects, reptiles, birds, and even aquatic microorganisms.  Working in the green classroom will allow students to absorb an integrated curriculum as they are immersed in hands-on learning and will promote the feeling of accomplishment and ownership that will inspire and promote self-confidence.

Research shows that children benefit greatly from the process of gardening.

• Children are active learners; they learn best when they are given the
  opportunity for hands-on play and discovery learning;
• Gardening taps into children's natural curiosity for the world around them;
• Gardening empowers children to succeed by increasing their skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and analysis, and enables them to apply these skills in real-world situations;
• Gardening programs teach respect and appreciation for the environment.

At Mountainview, we want to give our students the very best - excellence in education - and to empower them to succeed. We believe our Outdoor Classroom will help accomplish these goals by:

• Encouraging an increased interest in and better academic comprehension of science;
• Providing an opportunity for students to experience the benefits of multidisciplinary learning as they use their senses to gather information, form hypotheses, and observe changes in their garden;
• Enhancing personal growth in young children - promoting cooperation, teamwork, problem solving skills and creativity;
• Increasing self-esteem in student gardeners because of the pride taken in something they create in the gardening program;
• Developing a sense of ownership and responsibility to the school and the environment;
• Involving more parents and community partners by establishing a Junior Master Gardner Club as an after school enrichment program with its own curriculum.