Montessori Community School dedicates new green space

What do you do with an old, unused swimming pool? The Montessori Community School found a creative way to repurpose theirs.

Located for the past six years in what used to be the Jewish Community Center building, the school pondered over several options regarding what to do with the center’s old swimming pool. Ideas ranging from using it to catch rainwater to just reopening it as a community pool were considered and rejected.

Ultimately, the school decided that a playing field was what the students needed most, so the pool was filled with old concrete, earth and sod, and transformed into a new green space. As the first piece of the school’s efforts to make the campus a greener, friendlier place, the field was dedicated in November.

“I grew up in rural Montana, where we would run around all the time,” architect Sean Thompson said.

Having space to run and play helps children focus better in school, he said.

The father of an MCS student, Thompson designed the school’s current and future outdoor developments.

Future additions to the school’s outdoor area will include fruit trees and vegetable gardens to be planted in the spring. An outdoor amphitheater, pavilion, bouldering wall, basketball half-court and chicken coops will be added as funding is available. Most of the outdoor space developments will be on the south side of the campus, and will take into account the shape of the land, noise levels and the flow of traffic around them to make them as peaceful and practical as possible.

During its planning stages, everyone in the school was consulted for ideas on what to include in the outdoor area. Many of the ideas -- including the chickens -- came directly from the students. The students will have the opportunity to design a new play space sometime in the spring, as well.

“We feel strongly that a lot of children are losing contact with the earth,” MCS owner and director Robyn Eriwata-Buchanan said. “We do a lot in our school to make kids become familiar and comfortable with our environment.”

The school already has some vegetable gardens, which the younger students tend as part of their Outdoor Classroom program. The students learn about the plants and insects, how to attract birds, and how trees help the environment while they work in the garden. Growing their own veggies also encourages the students to eat them, Eriwata-Buchanan said.

Older students take field trips every Friday, weather permitting, to see Utah’s widely varying habitats in different seasons for their “GO” (Great Outdoors) program. In addition to becoming more aware of our state, they look for damage caused by human contact with each habitat, and learn how they can avoid causing it themselves. The older grades also participate in service work such as the Jordan River Project and tree planting.

“If we want children to value and care for the earth in the future, we have to teach them to love it now,” Eriwata-Buchanan said.