By Libor Jany libor.jany@startribune.com
The Natural Science Academy, a St. Paul Park charter school that opened six years ago, is putting together an outdoor classroom complete with a rain garden, bird feeders and plants and trees that are native to the area.
"We've built a really nice entrance arbor," said Kendra Hunding, the school's lead teacher. "We're going to be putting in paths. We've dragged in some landscaping in the form of giant logs."
After moving in 2010 into an empty wing of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, the school was forced to figure out ways to keep its students engaged. Lacking a traditional playground, school officials turned to the idea of the outdoor classroom, which will give teachers the ability to connect science lessons with real-life applications.
About 60 students attend the kindergarschool, which offers kindergarten through grade five.
On a recent afternoon, a group of aspiring scientists darted around the classroom while learning about native animal and plant species, said Hunding, a former Science Museum of Minnesota teacher who oversees fourth and fifth grades.
Past lessons include studying the migratory patterns of warblers.
"We do what's called place-based education," she said. "When kids learn about animals, they don't really learn about rain forest animals,. So they can learn about their place first, and as they get older that forms a basis of comparison."
