Madison Academy Elementary earns Outdoor Classroom certification

MADISON – With a snip of scissors, Madison Academy Elementary School officially opened its Outdoor Classroom at the private school campus during a recent ribbon cutting ceremony for the facility which will provide enrichment activities that help improve the students’ knowledge and skills as they learn about their environment and Alabama’s amazing biodiversity.

The ceremony also completed the motion Madison Academy will receive certification affirming the classroom through the Alabama Wildlife Federation (AWF) Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program and Schoolyard Wildlife Habitat certification through the National Wildlife Federation.

“A certified Outdoor Classroom, now referred to by the Alabama Wildlife Federation as a Habitat Learning Lab, is the culmination of an extensive, collaborative process with AWF, our team of faculty and staff, students, and parent community stakeholders,” said Brian Givens, principal of the Madison Academy Elementary School. “This unique learning environment will provide our teachers with standard and skill-based lessons from the AWF that our students will benefit from, with invaluable learning experiences.”

Their school will provide a model for other schools in Madison County and across Alabama who would like to develop an outdoor classroom and schoolyard wildlife habitat on their school grounds to provide hands-on, inquiry- based learning opportunities for their students. Also, during the certification ceremony, the school received certification as an official Monarch Waystation through Monarch Watch for providing habitat for monarch butterflies whose populations are in decline.

The Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program, a partnership between the AWF, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, and the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR), provides technical assistance for schools who want to develop sustainable outdoor learning stations and wildlife habitats that can be utilized for engaging, investigative activities that allow students of all ages to utilize multiple- disciplinary skills (including math, science, history, geography, and language arts) in a fun and exciting environment. “The learning stations, such as the sensory garden, songbird sanctuary, butterfly garden, frog bog, log decomposition, weather station, measuring wall, magnification station, balance and scale, ant farm, and plant root farm, all provide students with strategic opportunities to expand their learning through exploration,” added Givens. “As we seek to sustain this learning environment, our students and teachers will be a part of the ownership process by adopting areas and providing what is needed to maintain them. We are growing produce that will serve as opportunities to speak to students about the significance of our farmers within our community and beyond.”

Within the Outdoor Classroom, students enjoy a wide variety of activities in conjunction with their outdoor learning stations including:

• A sensory garden where students learn how to use all of their five senses as they record their observations; • A songbird sanctuary that provides students the opportunity to learn about the habitat needs of songbirds, their migration patterns, and the adaptations they have that help them survive;

• A butterfly garden where students study the life cycle stages of a butterfly and the migration patterns of butterflies like the Monarch butterfly through the Journey North program;

• A frog bog and pond that provides allows students to study frogs, their metamorphosis, and the wetland environments they prefer as habitat;

• A pollinator garden where students learn about the pollination process and the importance of bees and other pollinators for our food production; • A weather station that allows students to analyze data collected from weather instruments such as thermometers, hygrometers, barometers and anemometers.

Madison Academy’s second and third grade teachers provide handson outdoor activities for their students using the Alabama Wildlife Federation’s new Junior Wildlife Scientist program, which allows students to complete activities to earn two merit badges along with a new JWS Certificate each school year. The school’s fourth grade teachers will be able to provide the JWS program for their students during the next school year, and fifth grade will be provided in 2026-2027 as AWF completes each new grade level’s Nature Notebook activities and makes them available.

At present, over 350 schools across Alabama are developing and using outdoor classroom sites through the Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program.

For rainy days, students can explore Alabama’s wild places and learn about Alabama’s amazing wildlife and natural resources through the DVD series Discovering Alabama, donated by the Alabama Public Television show hosted by Dr. Doug Phillips.

“We aim for this to be a place filled with the joy of learning for years to come at Madison Academy,” said Givens. “A cross stands visible as a reminder to our students that without the sacrifice of our Savior, we could not enjoy the beauty of His creation.”