When fourth-grade students at Champlin-Brooklyn Park Academy (CBPA) for Math and Environmental Science visited nearby Mississippi Gateway Regional Park to explore a learning unit on landforms and landmarks, it represented the start of a year of learning outdoors made possible through a partnership with the Three Rivers Park District.
Give me Five: Champlin-Brooklyn Park Academy for Math and Environmental Science is a specialty school that benefits from an ongoing
partnership with the Three Rivers Park District. Starting with Kindergarten, students in all grades cycle through a five-lesson series on environmental learning, with three lessons on site at Mississippi Gateway Regional Park and two led by Three Rivers naturalists at the school.
Land labs and outdoor classrooms: In the fall session, CBPA teacher Kirk Gibb’s fourth-grade students learned about the difference between landforms and landmarks and then used the park as a real-world laboratory to identify those characteristics. Students created their own landforms in the sand in a water table and then observed and documented the impact that running water has on their creations. CBPA students keep a running account of their outdoor learning experiences in a journal they receive in Kindergarten. View photos from the visit. Students may experience 30 plus outdoor learning lessons during their time at the school.
Up next: Throughout this school year, fourth-grade students will learn about turtle traits and the Osprey in lessons at the park, and explore the water cycle and layers of the Earth in classroom sessions. Lessons for other grades range from insect inspection, plants, winter, wetlands ecology, and more. Lesson planning and delivery is supported by the school’s Curriculum Integrator Casey Weidenmann, working in cooperation with Three Rivers Park District naturalists and classroom teachers.
More information: CBPA is one of 12 magnet and specialty schools offered in the Anoka-Hennepin School District. View a video and learn more about the school at ahschools.us/cbpa.
