Students Push for New School Playground

Cabinet Press – November 14, 2008
By Wendy DePuy

When children are giving up their birthday presents for something, you’ve got to believe they really want it.

That’s what Peter Woodbury Elementary School third-grader Annie Schulman did last month, when she turned 9. She asked school friends who came to her party not to buy her a gift, but instead to make a donation to the school’s new playground project.

“We received a nice donation from Annie’s party,” said Mindy Beltramo, the school librarian.

Other kids have been selling T-shirts designed by fourth-grader Erin Eldridge and first-grader Michael Johnson, and helping with fundraising events, like the second-graders’ recent Scarecrow Jubilee, which raised about $1,500.

The students hope to raise about $150,000 in time to make the playground they helped plan a reality in the next year or two.

The new nature-oriented play yard would give kids greater opportunity to interact with the natural landscape and participate in the school’s garden club.

And it would replace the school’s existing play structure, which was built for kindergarten through grade 2 children and is just too small for Peter Woodbury third- and fourth-graders.

“We’ve been hurting ourselves in the metal tunnels, because they’re too small,” third-grader Nolan Anderson said on Monday, when 11 students talked to a reporter about the new playground.

The old equipment is part of the problem, suggested some students.

“I’d like to take away some of the metal, because people keep getting hurt,” fourth-grader Peyton Murray said.

“A lot of people keep getting hurt, because there are boards sticking out of the old, big slide,” third-grader Nicholas Carter said.

A couple of students said there just isn’t much to do out there.

“We really don’t know what to do on the playground,” Nolan said.

“I’d really like the new playground because we don’t have enough room,” fourth-grader Charles Carter said.

Other kids said there should be barriers between different activity areas of the playground to prevent collisions.

“It doesn’t have very many grassy areas, or many trees, just some worn out play toys,” third-grader Jillian Leveille said.

Others remembered the heat of the summer and wished for more shady spots outside.

“We could add more bushes and trees so there would be more shade,” third-grader Kalee Southwell said.

While Kalee pointed out that more trees and plants would mean a shadier, more pleasant environment, others anticipated the joys of gardening they would provide.

“I would like a garden because we can check on our tomatoes, because they might dry out if no one’s watching them,” first-grader Michael Johnson said.

In the school’s garden club, students grow flowers or vegetables or milkweed (for butterflies). But because the garden is in front of the school, not in back with the playground, it is not accessible to kids at recess. That means that another adult has to be available to take kids there, so that only a few kids from each class are able to participate.

In the new design, the gardens would be near the playground and more children could take part in it.

Getting children to interact with their natural environment is a key underlying principle of the new design.

Beltramo, Roberge and other staff were inspired to design a playground that would give children more interaction with the outdoors in a natural landscape after reading Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods, a selection for their professional reading group.

Louv’s book says the outdoors is disappearing from children’s lives, said Beltramo.
“As children, we made those outdoor connections,” Beltramo said. “We came home from school, and we went outside. Our parents told us to go outside, and not to come in until it’s dark.”

Little did parents know it, but that free time outside – exploring the yard or the stone wall or the trees – is great for developing the mind, helping kids do better in everything from science testing to socialization, Beltramo and Roberge said.

Now kids spend too little time outside and too much time in front of the TV or playing video games, Roberge said.

And it’s not just the children’s abilities that are at stake, Beltramo said – it’s the future of the planet. Spending time outdoors helps kids value nature, Beltramo said.
“These kids are our future, and if they don’t make that connection to our outside world, to our environment, we’re not going to have one,” Beltramo said.

Roberge hopes the new play yard will be developed soon enough to reward the students for the work they’ve done.

Last year, students drew pictures and made clay models showing how they’d like the play yard to look. The first Friday of each month is School Spirit Day, when they wear fundraising T-shirts and other gear. And they continually help with fundraisers.

“We’re working really, really hard,” Jillian said. “We have this thing called spare change, and if you have any spare change, like four dimes, every class has box, and you put it in the box, and once it’s full, they donate it to the playground.”

Raising $150,000 will not be easy, Beltramo said.

“It is a very daunting task. We are very aware of what the economy is doing,” she said.

Nolan was optimistic.

“I think it’s going to work, because we’re working really hard.”

The play yard will consist of four parts: a traditional play structure; a natural landscape, where kids can sit and talk in the shade of a tree or jump on a series of tree stumps; the gardens; and an outdoor classroom.

Everything will be done in an environmentally sound way, Roberge said. In fact, the National Wildlife Federation has certified the school garden area as an official wildlife habitat.

To design the play yard, the school is working with professionals and students from the New Hampshire Technical Institute, and educator Marilyn Wyzga from the Fish and Game Department.

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