At first glance they may just look like two small, shallow ponds of water.
But this area of the École Pauline Johnson schoolyard has a bigger story behind it.
After problems with flooding, bank erosion, and water quality, this part of the playground was rescued and re-designed to perform an important task.
“It became a resurrected ecosystem so that the kids could learn we can change things for the better if we just let Mother Nature do her work,” explains Kyra Williams Smiljanic, who co-chaired the revitalization of the grounds.
A series of native plants, gravel and earth was added to a previously marshy area that was prone to puddles and flooding. The combined materials act like a kidney, cleaning the water as it passes through. It took a lot of work behind the scenes and in front to create a shallow pond (safe for school use) and a second pond that was also created for students to play in.
Last weekend, a group of community volunteers and parents participated in a three-day work party to put the finishing touches on a project that has been four years in the making.
The PJ Outdoor Learning and Community Park contains nine distinct components that were designed to benefit both the school community and its surrounding neighbourhood.
The ponds are part of a biodiversity wetland created for learning purposes, and as part of the overall goal of “greening” the school space. The other components of the project include a bird sanctuary, community gardens, a Grand Allee walkway, and an outdoor classroom. An outdoor performance amphitheatre was also added after an eroding bank was repaired and re-purposed.
All the hard construction was done by August, and last weekend’s work party represented an end to most of the planned designs. Working in four-hour shifts, more than 100 volunteers built a bird watching deck, a runway to utilize water from the wetlands for kid-play, enhanced the beginnings of the Grand Allay of trees by planting six new trees along the walkway, finished a pollinator garden for a veggie garden, and put in a retaining cedar wall along with other details. They also added lots of plants, many of which were donated by the District of West Vancouver parks department.
Initially a parent-led initiative, Williams Smiljanic says all the support the group has received through donations, fundraising, and volunteer labour by individuals, businesses, and community groups, to complete the project has been “absolutely overwhelming.”
Still to be completed is a revitilized kindergarten space that is currently a small concrete courtyard. That aspect of the project is being handed off to the next generation of parents, who will inherit some legacy funds from the current team to get the new design started.
Another interesting element of the new playground is a healing circle in the forest inspired by First Nations traditions. Williams Smiljanic says the healing circle fits well with the school’s curriculum, which includes more awareness and instruction around issues such as bullying.
The healing circle also fits with the overall theme of the park, which is connection and coming together, explains Williams Smiljanic. The theme became more relevant to this school in particular when it experienced two recent tragedies.
During the process of redesigning their schoolyard area into a school-use and community park, the École Pauline Johnson community lost two students in separate accidents.
Seven-year-old Erin Kate Moore died in a hiking accident in Lions Bay in 2014, and six-year-old Madelynne "Maddy" Melvin Liebenberg died in a drowning accident in 2015.
A natural climbing apparatus is being added to the playground in October as a memorial to Erin, and a butterfly and pollinator garden was started with Maddy's mother and grandmother in her memory.
“It’s just a beautiful way to remember a neat little girl that we all loved,” says Williams Smiljanic of Maddy, who was a friend of her son’s.
The original plans for the playground space were designed by well-known landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, and Williams Smiljanic says they were able to incorporate at least 85 per cent of those ideas.
Up next for the project is following through with implementing the programming part of the space, which Williams Smiljanic says they hope includes the Kiwanis assisted living centre, a preschool, and a daycare that are all next door to the school.
Nearing the end of the project is an exciting prospect for Williams Smiljanic who describes her impression of the group’s overall achievement as “beyond my expectations.”
