Students in local division will once again enjoy this unique learning opportunity
Getting out of the classroom and learning things in a different environment are often some of the most fun days in a student’s school year. The Lord Selkirk School Division (LSSD) staff have worked hard to ensure that kids in our area will have one more place to go and learn from now on since their outdoor classroom space has officially hosted it’s first field trip ealier this year.
“The school division owns 51 acres of land. Originally, it was land that was transferred to the Selkirk-based district when it was created in 1967 as a result of an amalgamation of independent and public schools in that region,” said Lockport School Teacher Jodi Forfar.
The outdoor classroom is an open-air environment that allows kids to get out of their classrooms and into a more natural open space.
“In 1981, teachers decided to turn it into an outdoor education space, and create a camp in that forested area,” said Forfar.
Unfortunately, in 2005 the cabins that were on the property had reached the end of their usable lives and had to be removed for safety reasons. From that point, the property was unused for several years.
Forfar said that former superintendent Scott Kwasnitza started the ball rolling to the current outdoor classroom space in 2015.
“He organized a committee and as LSSD staff, we decided to move forward with a project that would turn the space into a day field trip site,” she said.
LSSD staff have been working on this project slowly ever since.
“Funding has always been tough to secure to move the project forward. We required grants and things like that to move it forward and COVID was a setback as well. Just over the last couple of years, we’ve got it up and running again,” said Forfar.
The first of many field trips to come to the site took place this fall.
“The field trip was part of an option here at Lockport [School as part of our] enrichment programming, where students could sign up and they went to the site. We spent almost a full day there. We went through a series of activities. The first activity we did was just a walk through the space together as a group, I gave a tour of the site, and showed them the trails and talked a little bit about the history of the site. The other part of our day was running scavenger hunts through the trails,” said Forfar.
She says that they received a lot of positive feedback from the students.
“They were in no rush to get back to school and get on the bus. They were on the trails, they were active, they were busy, they were running, they were interacting with each other, they were exploring, and they were seeing things they hadn’t seen before. I heard a lot of positive feedback, ‘This is the best field trip ever.’ ‘This is awesome!’ and by the end of the day, when we had to go, they were already asking when we could go back,” said Forfar.
She explained that there are many benefits to getting kids into outdoor education spaces.
“Obviously, there are physical benefits, they have movement. They can be a lot louder outdoors than in a classroom. There’s a lot more interaction with each other in an outdoor setting, and also mental health benefits [because] they’re outside and they’re getting fresh air. There’s different sensory exposure to sounds and smells and touching different things,” said Forfar.
She says that they have plans for a grand opening event to take place at the site in the spring and hope to welcome other staff and students to use the space in the future.
“We would love to see it used year-round for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. We are hoping to extend that to invite community members as well from other schools and districts to use the space as well,” said Forfar.
She thanks all of the people who worked very hard to make this space happen for the students.
“I really appreciate the amount of support that we’ve had from the community and our maintenance staff that have really taken ownership overseeing this space come to life. It’s been a lot of work and a lot of dedication from staff and it’s so much appreciated. There’s a lot of background work that went into this to make it happen,” said Forfar.
