Outdoor Learning Spaces

Orion students and staff leverage inviting learning spaces outside collaborating, learning, and reflecting. The reimagined garden is an extended learning space in the wide outdoors. The outdoor classroom has sprung to life, featuring nearly a dozen raised beds full of produce and herbs, a trellis, fruit trees, a pollinator garden, benches and a whiteboard. 

Students and teachers can come to the garden not only to plant and investigate insects but to draw, read, write, and let their creativity flow. Using the garden space also inspires students to make real world connections to California’s science curriculum, as well as to climate studies and the campus green waste initiative. 

Orion students readily take ownership of the space they have helped to build and nurture by harvesting, planting, weeding and learning to use tools. A special place, many students enjoy the after-school garden club or visit the garden during recess. Weekend work days in the garden also help strengthen community connections.