CREJ

DECEMBER 2016 \ BUILDING DIALOGUE \

potentially sterile detention area for a large mid-

dle school into a biodiverse outdoor learning lab

with thriving wetland plants and plentiful wild-

life. In 1990 in Boulder, we designed the transfor-

mation of an elementary school’s concrete drain-

age swale into a thriving wetland, observation deck,

boardwalk and outdoor classroom. This wetland area

survived the massive Colorado floods in 2013, while

the surrounding areas were devastated. The floods

were described as 1,000-year rain and a 100-year flood,

occurring over eight stormy days, causing devastation

from the eastern side of the continental divide to the

Colorado/Kansas border.

Since then, we’ve worked on over two dozen Learning

Landscapes for Denver Public Schools, complete with

outdoor classrooms, gardens, artwork, colorful gateways

and shade shelters, tracks, and environmental learning

areas for Denver Public Schools. Student learning pieces

include such diverse elements as weather stations with a

remote readout for students to track the weather, themed

elements which include facts such as insect and animal life-

cycles etched in boulders and pavement, poems which de-

scribe the places and things one would see travelling along

a nearby stream and floating all the way out to the sea, or

the fanciful graphics with shapes and colors that students

can study and count. We have also helped other school dis-

tricts to expand their abilities to extend learning into the

schoolyard.

In the end, there is unlimited opportunity to connect chil-

drenwith the outdoors and enhance the school’s curriculum.

Before, bland sports fields, plain asphalt play pads, wall-to-

wall turf or pea gravel, and minimal social sites dominat-

ed school grounds. Today, equal importance on community

use, educational opportunities and hands-on learning exist

making the schoolyard more humane and interesting.

ELEMENTS

Schoolyard Design

Outdoor learning area at a new Denver Public School site,

complete with cottonwood stump tables and chairs, wooden

bridge over a dry streambed, running track, textural stone

pathways, outdoor classroom and gardens.