Barn Classroom at Bell Top Elementary, East Greenbush CSD

Bell Top Elementary School – October 3-5, 2006

I’ve been working with Bell Top Elementary in the East Greenbush School District for many years. They have a wonderful barn classroom that is the focus for a lot of outdoor environmental education above and beyond my residence program that I bring each year.

I’ve got to tell you what I know about the barn classroom because it’s a wonderful inspiration for all schools – an inspiration to take advantage of whatever the outdoors school environment has to offer. Every school has something outdoors that can be put to use inspiring a sense of science, a sense of wonder, a sense of questions that can lead to exploration and learning.

If I don’t have the whole story straight I apologize, but I think that I have the basics. As I understand it, it all started with a student teacher that wanted to do maple sugaring in the spring. She got the permission of the classroom teacher and the administration to do so. They went out into the woods surrounding the school, identified several maple trees, tapped them, and boiled off the sap in the classroom (actually they may have done it in the cooking classroom, yes – the school does cooking classes – a great way to inspire reading, follow directions, making measurements – a whole host of interdisciplinary learning inspired by food!) to make maple syrup.

Several years later when that same teacher, now hired by the school, returned she got the whole school (it is a small school, a couple of classes each for grades K to 5) to take on maple sugaring as a project in the spring. All kinds of learning revolved around the sugaring; reading about it, studying the Native American history of sugaring, tree identification and life cycles, measuring sap, learning about evaporation, teamwork and cooperation. The teachers got parents involved to help tend the boiling-off fire.

While tending the fire on a typical cold, drizzly early March day, the teachers and parents working the project wishfully thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little sugar shack?” I’m sure in their minds’ eye they saw a simple pole or shed structure with a roof that would keep off the rain.

This led to some research. Several people put together a grant to see what it would take to build a sugar shack. With that grant they consulted with an architect that advised them on what would need to be done to build a small sugar house/barn. Then back to the grant writing, which secured the funds to build a small barn. The architect suggested “Wouldn’t it be nice to have an English style barn for the front half and a Dutch style barn for the other half?” And that was what was built.

The barn, called the Barn Classroom, serves as focal point for apple cider pressing in the fall. In the spring it is a sugar house. Last year I did sheep shearing in the barn while a craftsperson did hand spinning of animal fiber in the art room. The Barn Classroom is the centerpiece for a beautiful nature trail that winds its way through the surrounding woods where the maple trees for springtime tapping grow. A few years ago I surveyed the nature trail with 4th and 5th graders and used that data to draw a scale map for the trail, while the K through 3rd graders developed pages for a nature trail booklet based on topics explored on nature walks I had taken them on.

What a wonderful model for school to look at. Every school should investigate what the outdoor school environment has to offer the teachers and students for learning. Every school doing so needs financial support to help them take advantage of these outdoor learning opportunities. Then , as I tell my classes, “The outdoors is our science laboratory – with all kinds of opportunities for exploring, discovering and learning.”