Chase Elementary School could be the newest BC school to host an outdoor classroom.
The Kamloops District School Board will spend the next year examining the possibility. Chair Kathleen Karpuk says the majority of learning would take place outside no matter the weather and you use the natural environment to support the curriculum. “We’ve seen some reports that show that students that have access to an outdoor classroom perform quite well. So we have a approved that staff will be going ahead with a feasibility study on that.”
Karpuk says among the information the study will look at includes what age would be most appropriate to start taking learning in an outdoor classroom. “At this point, because we’re talking about the elementary school, it would be elementary students, but that would be something that we would look at as part of the feasibility study.”
Karpuk adds they will be looking elsewhere for some examples. “So there’s three or four districts in BC that actually have outdoor classrooms and so we’ll be looking at some of them as examples. Salmon Arm has an outdoor classroom, Maple Ridge, I believe there’s one in Sooke. So, there’s examples throughout the province, so we’ll be looking at that.”
Karpuk says the idea was brought forward at its latest board meeting and the feasibility study will be conducted over the current school year.