mattersmagazine.com 17 hout Walls How to turn a back yard into a school BY TIA SWANSON PHOTOS BY KEVIN KRAFT O On a chilly but dry morning last May, not long after the sun came up, a group of Seth Boyden parents arrived at the back yard of the school, armed with shovels, spades, work gloves and water. Over the next several weeks, while their children climbed on a mammoth dirt pile nearby, an always changing group of parents, often joined by neighbors, co-workers and assorted members of the community, labored to turn a longtime dream into a reality. Working off designs by South Orange landscape architect William Scerbo, the volunteers spent long Saturdays carting soil, digging holes, watering, planting, mulching and fretting. By the end of June, a project that had begun with a handful of parents years before, had grown to encompass an entire community and its sizeable back yard. The result: a once desolate patch of struggling grass is now a suburban oasis and an educational wonderland. Of course, outdoor learning has long been part of the curriculum at the Seth Boyden Demonstration School. And while the project was built in bits and phases over the course of 15 years, last spring saw the building of the biggest, and most expensive part of the project: an honest- to-goodness outdoor classroom and its surrounding gardens, a classroom complete with sundial, blackboard, teacher’s desk, class tables, wi-fi, running water and electricity. With its completion, the entire back yard has been dubbed the Outdoor Learning Center – OLC for short. Besides the classroom, it includes three play structures, a vegetable garden, strawberry beds, a kitchen, a fitness loop, a track, a play field, a native arboretum and a habitat garden. Henry ‘Christian’ Quaritius Broker / Sales Associate c.quaritius@bhhsnj.com 917-584-4913 www.Christian1GreatAgent.com 392 Springfield Avenue Summit, NJ 07901 908.273.0400 HENRY ‘CHRISTIAN’ QUARITIUS My Experience, Your Advantage OPEN HOUSE Each Friday in October at 10 AM