Students, teachers, and parents at Cleveland elementary pruned, weeded, and chopped their way into two new outdoor classrooms Friday.
The classrooms are located in the wooded area just south of the school, which has been the focus of a concerted gardening effort and ecological restoration for the last four years.
After discovering the three-hectare forest had been identified as surplus land by the North Vancouver school board, event coordinator Lea Carpenter said she took the initiative in transforming the area to prevent the land from being sold.
"I walked through that area every day and decided we really needed to show them ownership for our beloved forest," Carpenter said.
Because of the replacement of plants and retention of green space, the property is no longer on the market, according to North Vancouver school board chairwoman Franci Stratton.
"It's not considered surplus at this point," Stratton said. An experienced event planner, Carpenter described the fouryear transformation of the forest on-site Friday while identifying mushroom manure for students and advising children with shovels to avoid landscape cloth while digging.
"I proposed that we do a one-day school event that showed stewardship for our school property and to do an invasive pull," she said, discussing the 2008 event, dubbed, Free the Trees. "That's how the whole thing started."
With the majority of work done by students, the school filled dumpsters with green waste while tangling with the plethora of non-native plants that had taken root in the area, including some very thick ivy.
"It had to be sawed off and removed with crowbars," Carpenter said of the ivy girdling the trees.
Invasive species like holly, Japanese knotweed, bamboo, and burdock were also blossoming in the forest, according to Carpenter.
"The more I learned and the more I looked around I realized we had a pretty invaded forest," she said.
Looking to add new plants and shrubs to the wooded area, Carpenter collaborated with parents at the school, including a forester and a landscape architect to submit a proposal to the provincial government.
Since 2008, the school has raised more than $45,000 to fund the rejuvenation of the forest, according to Carpenter.
A $40,000 provincial grant helped pay for 269 new trees and more than 3,000 new shrubs, according to Carpenter.
With funds raised from other sources, including the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation, the school was able to purchase 100 pairs of garden gloves as well as shovels, trowels, and soil.
Excluding some dangerous work performed on a sharp slope of the school grounds, approximately 80 per cent of the gardening has
been done by students, according to Carpenter. Restoring the wooded area has helped students learn about the habitat surrounding the school and its place in the larger ecosystem, Carpenter said. One of the outdoor classrooms consist of a teacher's rock and three rows of large boulders, the other is a large circle in an open space, according to Carpenter.
The ribbon-cutting for the new classrooms took place Friday.
