OUTDOOR LEARNING INIATIVE

Developing outdoor learning areas on Lansing Christian School’s 66-acre campus has been a long-time vision for the school. This past year, the importance of time spent outdoors to support the physical, mental, and emotional health of our students was highlighted as teachers spent increased time outdoors to take a break from the mitigation strategies that were necessary inside the building. Our students enjoy being outdoors, exploring the woods, building forts with tree branches, and going on prayer walks. Spending time outdoors gives our students the space to think, to move, and to be in community in a whole
new way.

Optimizing the school’s facilities and grounds to support the people and programs at LCS is a key priority of the five year strategic plan. To support this new priority, the school started taking significant steps towards identifying and developing outdoor learning spaces to help support outdoor teaching and learning well. During the spring, a group of parent volunteers helped to cut new paths in the woods to create over two miles of walkable trails and cleared several learning spaces for our PreK-12th grade students. The school also worked with an architect to help identify key structures that the school could develop to
provide areas on our campus for outdoor learning. We shared our newly developed master plan with the LCS community during the 2021 Black and Gold Fund Drive. And, thanks to their generosity, we raised nearly $100,000 to put towards Phase 1 of the plan. Included in the Annual Report are renderings created by a landscape architect of Phase 1 of the project, which includes a Learning Pavilion on the elementary side of the building and an amphitheater to support PreK-12th grade students. We anticipate construction on Phase 1 will begin in Spring 2022.