Staff Writer

Consolidated School’s outdoor classroom is finally open for learning.

Situated outside with only four posts in the ground and a roof, it doesn’t look like a typical classroom.

Students spent the last few weeks outdoors helping pot grass and bulbs in biodegradable cardboard boxes, which were placed on the roof of the new building situated near the school’s front entrance.

The cardboard eventually will disintegrate and leave only plants and roots. In time, the plants will grow over the roof and along poles to create a cave-like feel.

Parents, faculty and volunteers toured the new project at the Kennebunkport elementary during its opening and dedication ceremony June 2.

Students clamored before the ceremony to sit on seats made of tree stumps. A special rock, a step donated from the old primary school on Wildes District Road, also serves as seating. A lobster outline made from rock slabs decorates the classroom’s walkway.

Consolidated students have been gearing up for the opening ceremony by spending more time outdoors learning about different types of greenery and how to plant them.

The structure is more than a classroom: The roof and plants collect water that will run into an outdoor collection station nearby to be used to water other plants in the school’s green house.

The new room won’t be used for just science, said Pam Morgan, a member of the school’s Go Green Committee and a professor at the University of New England.

Morgan said the classroom will be used to teach students any subject and offers teachers a place they can bring students for reading aloud or even a math review.

Many of the teachers and parents who spoke during the ceremony recalled how as children they spent most of their time outdoors.

Morgan said she remembers playing outside until suppertime – not that her parents would allow her in beforehand.

“Kids have a fear of stranger danger,” Morgan said. “They cannot even tell you which trees grown in their own backyards.”

Another speaker and committee member, Larry Ryan, said being environmentally friendly isn’t always easy, but it is always beneficial.

“It’s not easy being green,” he said, quoting Kermit the Frog.

Ryan, a retired teacher, has traveled the country and world working with environmental scientists. He said the new environmentally friendly classroom will give students an opportunity to educate their parents on how to be “green.”

The green classroom is part of the school’s curriculum based around environmentally friendly learning. Starting this year, students of all grade levels have learned how to recycle, about alternative energy sources and vermaculture – composting with live worms.

Also new to the school this year are solar panels from Solar Market in Arundel, which matched the $21,000 that students raised by collecting box tops.

The new green classroom is dedicated to Solar Market for its help with the solar panels; Carter and John Bryan; William J.J. Gordon Foundation; Education Foundation of the Kennebunks and Arundel, which made donations; Hazelwood Construction – which helped build the new room; and Principal Kathy Pence, who will retire at the end of this school year.

Teachers will continue to hold class under the new structure for the remainder of the school year but once the it over, the classroom will be open to the public.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.