One sunny afternoon this spring a group of Orion School students walked down the street to work in the Piedmont Park Community Garden. At the same time another group worked on gardening day projects at the school. Primary learning activities like gardening make a multitude of valuable academic connections that cannot possibly be made sitting at a desk in a classroom. Visiting community gardens expands an understanding of the community we all live in.The Orion School is a special needs school offering an intensively supportive education for students who have social and emotional conditions like ADHD or Aspergers. Our students may or may not have additional learning differences. Our students all benefit from a curriculum rich in high interest, high concept learning modalities. One of our ongoing goals is to expand our ability to offer even more opportunities for authentic experiential learning for our students. One way we are meeting this goal is through our Greenspacewith Grace outdoor classroom project. We are energized to become the first special needs school with a green focus since this has always been our sensibility. We have had a worm bin for years…now we will add a worm factory. We hatch chicks each spring….now we will keep and care for some of them. We have always recycled...now we will add a rainbarrel and compost tumbler. We have always gardened in some form…now we will formalize our commitment to a sustainable garden that will feed Orion students as well as eventually give our students the chance to give back to others who need it.
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