Austinville Elementary will be the second school in Morgan County and the first school in the Decatur City Schools to participate in the Ponds for Kids program in partnership with the Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program.  The students, parents, faculty and community volunteers will help build and install a water garden on their school grounds in just one day! 

The media is invited to tour the school’s outdoor classroom site and take pictures throughout the day.  The event will begin at 8 a.m. with shifts of students and volunteers cycling through until approximately 2:15 p.m.; at which time, the water garden installation should be completed and they will ceremoniously plug in the water pump bringing the water garden to life.

                        Background Info

The Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program, a partnership between the Alabama Wildlife Federation, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and Alabama Cooperative Extension System, provides technical assistance for schools who want to develop sustainable outdoor classroom sites that can be utilized as effective teaching tools.  Austinville Elementary enrolled in the Alabama Outdoor Classroom program in January of 2007, and is working to certify their outdoor classroom site as a model for other schools. 

Austinville Elementary’s outdoor classroom site, which will include gardens, a wild bird sanctuary, outdoor pavilion, and aquatic studies area, is the vision of Amy Clark, who has taught at Austinville for 29 years.  Amy, along with other Austinville faculty members and parents, are working together to develop their outdoor classroom site for hands-on learning opportunities with the students and to provide wildlife habitat for local wildlife.  Through the Ponds for Kids (PFK) program, their outdoor classroom will include the addition of a new water garden area with a waterfall, two streams, pond, and wetland, which will provide an aquatic studies area for learning opportunities about aquatic ecosystems and wildlife. 

Through a partnership with the North American Water Gardening Society’s PFK program, Austinville Elementary will receive discounted pond-building materials and free technical assistance from Lee Vought of Vought Water Gardens from Decatur, Alabama.  Vought provides free assistance to schools enrolled in the Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program to help them develop and install their aquatic studies areas in just one day working hand-in-hand with the students, faculty and volunteers. Monetary and volunteer support for Austinville’s PFK pond and outdoor classroom site also comes from the GE Volunteers, Alabama Wildlife Federation, Vought Water Gardens, Vaughn and Webster Heating and Cooling, Littrell Lumber Co., Smarty Plants Nursery, Greenleaf Nursery, Douthit Excavating, Gobble-Fite, and Parkway Hospital.

A goal of the Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program is to provide hands-on, outdoor learning opportunities that allow students of all ages to utilize multiple-disciplinary skills in a fun and exciting environment.  With the addition of their aquatic study area, Austinville Elementary will complete a major goal in the development of their outdoor classroom site.  At present, 96 schools across Alabama are developing outdoor classroom sites through the Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program.