Students Built an Outdoor Classroom

Students built an outdoor classroom at Good Hope Middle School, with some help from their math lab teacher.

“We didn’t just build this for ourselves, we built this for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other students,” says Good Hope student, Charlie Toney. “Being cooped up in the classroom, it’s not fun.”

The classroom was built in one day with planning help from teacher Jamie Hugghins.

“As an adult, I don’t like sitting in a room listening to someone talk for more than 15 minutes,” says Hugghins. “After 15 minutes, you’ve lost my attention.”

Stimulating student minds to solve problems in creative ways is essential for Hugghins.

“I just always try to find ways of teaching them where it’s not just me talking,” says Hugghins.

The classroom was built in one day, but five month of planning went into it. Implementing math lessons in the design and building of the classroom with sixth, seventh, and eighth graders was fun.

“Students that I teach played a part in creating the budgets and doing the math for figuring out how many pavers on each side and area,” says Hugghins. “They also worked with West Monroe High School’s STEM Department to build a scale model.”