Urban Outdoor Classrooms
design and artwork
Site based installation artwork combined with environmental education concepts and green practice landscape design bring direct emersion in nature to the schoolyard landscape.
To create these special places for Boston Public elementary schools existing asphalt is pulled up to build places that engage students with the natural world through sensory experience, stimulation of the imagination, opportunity for discovery, and daily experience of environmental change offered by nature.
An Outdoor Classroom is a space that is
child-centered and built with a diversity of materials both natural and man-made. A variety of textures, shapes, plant species, and colors are used to create a landscape that is aesthetically engaging and mimics the richness found in larger more wild natural environments.
Outdoor Classrooms include recycled materials, examples of wind & solar energy, green roof structures, storm water recovery systems, rain gardens and public art.
Outdoor Classroom Pilot project development team for the Boston Schoolyard Initiative:
Bruce Fulford, Horticulture
Kristin Metz, Curriculum
Ross Miller, Artist and Design
Julie Stone, Community Organixer
