January 17, 2018

A magnificent metamorphosis is taking place at Lincoln Heights Magnet Elementary School.

We’re not just talking about the butterflies that students will study as part of the school’s brand-new Environmental Connections theme. Nor are we referring simply to the $22.5 million makeover that has rendered a beautiful new campus.

It’s so much more than that.

Change is in the air, and it hits you head on the minute you enter the school. An exuberant staff flurries around, suggesting an almost celebratory atmosphere. In fact, the staff apparently was celebrating something on a recent visit.

“You want some cake?” offered a cheery, welcoming staff member in the fresh, spacious and colorful new front office with gray-stained hardwood floors.

The staff – along with students and families -  have reason to celebrate. Many very good reasons, in fact.

‘Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better’

The above quote from Albert Einstein drives the philosophy of the new Environmental Connections theme at LHES.

Lincoln Heights goes full throttle with its Environmental Connections theme – funded with a portion of a $14 million federal magnet grant to our district – in fall 2018. And a new and highly motivated crew of teachers and magnet professionals already are enveloping environmental science into all subjects for a “trial run” this semester.

“Everybody in this building chose to be here,” said Principal Kim Grant (above, second from right) of the high standards set for the new teaching staff. “Everyone was hired with the understanding of what the expectations were for an inquiry approach to environmental instruction.”

In Lincoln Heights’s winning grant application, the program designers cited author Richard Louv’s book, “Last Child in the Woods,” as inspiration for the Environmental Connections theme. Louv coined the term “nature-deficit disorder” – deprivation of the connection between children and the natural world.

The Environmental Connections magnet theme aims to provide generous opportunities for students to take their learning experiences outdoors. Research reveals that intellectual, emotional, social and mental health – along with all cognitive abilities – improve with this, along with a reduction in symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), stress and depression.

“Our instruction is embedded in everything we do,” said Lincoln Heights magnet coordinator Jessica Currin. “We still deliver the core math and language arts curriculum, but we are doing everything through the environmental and life science lenses.”

Through the new theme, Environmental Challenge Inquiry Units are taught by Environmental Inquiry (E-Inquiry) teachers and feature four broad themes: living things; earth science/solar system; environmental/community connections; and weather and climate.

Hands-on learning with new technology, numerous outdoor activities

Hands-on learning is more than a given at Lincoln Heights. Instead of employing manipulatives in the classroom, for example, kindergarten students might learn to count using acorns or leaves outside. Instead of learning about the Fibonacci spiral from a textbook, older students might observe how – and why – pine cones grow in this fashion.

Students also will have access to a host of equipment and technology (iPads, laptops, computer-enabled microscopes, interactive technology, sensors for air temperature and pressure, butterfly nets, binoculars) as well as outdoor learning labs (pollinator garden, food garden, wetlands).

Among the countless collaborative and interactive activities are:

• Cultivating vegetable gardens and donating their produce to the surrounding community;
• Studying weather and climate, including the launching of weather balloons;
• Learning about recycling and composting;
• Discovering pollination via beekeeping and designing and building their own pollinators;
• Investigating history and anatomy through the study of fossils;
• Delving into agricultural science by learning about animals and the “bartering” methods of trading produce for livestock; and yes,
• Raising chickens!

Those are just a few of the classroom activities and outdoor experiences, formed in partnership with visiting teachers/professors from:

• N.C. State University Colleges of Education, Natural Resources and Agriculture and Life Sciences
• N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences
• N.C. Department of Environmental Quality/Environmental Education
• N.C. Project Learning Tree
• BioGen
• WakeEd Partnership

These partners will send lecturers and other experts to teach classes and lead projects with Lincoln Heights students. In turn, students will take numerous field trips to these and other places of learning. The partners, especially from N.C. State, also are providing hours of intensive professional development for teachers.

Preparation for college, career and life

All of these experiences and many more, say Grant and Currin, will plant the seeds for students to begin thinking about cultivating (see what we did there?) careers not only in agriculture and life sciences, but also environmental science, meteorology, aeronautical engineering, forestry and an array of fields in bio research.

Principal Grant is excited about the transformation happening before her eyes. She wants the Lincoln Heights community – along with anyone in our school district who is interested – to see it for themselves. She says parent feedback from school tours has been extremely positive, and she loves showing it off.

“They can come and see us anytime. If they want to come on a weekend, I’m here,” she said.

In fact, the next scheduled magnet theme open house at Lincoln Heights is Tuesday, Jan. 23 at 6 p.m. Additional open houses are scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 25 at 9:30 a.m. and Wednesday, Jan. 31 at 1 p.m. The school is located at 307 Bridge St., Fuquay-Varina.