Student-Driven Practices: 2.7 Healthy School Environment
2018: The boys planted and are now harvesting vegetables for a weekly salad day!
Creation of Usable Outdoor Spaces
The courtyards and outside areas of Severna Park Middle are in the process of being transformed into usable spaces for students, faculty, and wildlife!
One courtyard is completely finished and now contains outdoor learning spaces, a vegetable garden, a greenhouse, and bird feeders and houses. Students worked to clean up the area by weeding, mulching and trimming trees and bushes. Students in the Environmental Club helped build raised beds and a greenhouse for planting vegetables. These students even enjoyed a salad lunch once a week using vegetables they grew.
The project began with the donation of gently used outdoor furniture from a community partner, Furniture Solutions of Annapolis. Students cleaned and arranged the furniture into usable group working spaces. Eighth grade Environmental Club members also bought, built and painted a bench that was donated to the area. The outdoor space was then enhanced with the building of vegetable planters and a greenhouse. Students built, painted, and installed bird feeders and houses for the area. The space was further enhanced with kindness rocks painted by students and placed in the outdoor area.
Native birds have been drawn back to the area because of the feeders and houses installed. The students enjoy watching the array of birds now visiting these outdoor spaces. Migratory ducks have also found a home here, returning each year to have their young. Waiting for the ducklings to arrive has become a favorite pastime for students and adults.
2016: Students learn tae kwon do in World Language, taking a much needed active break in the middle of their academic day.
Indoor & Outdoor Brain and Body Breaks
Students participate in an Advisory lesson several times a week. The regular schedule is adjusted to allow time for students to engage in lessons that are less curriculum driven, but critical nonetheless. This time might be used to discuss and implement service learning projects, for instance. One of the most common themes is that teachers use this time to get students outside – for walks or games – just to get a little fresh air. Teachers incorporate Brain Gym activities. Inside or out, this time is often used for stretching and movement, knowing that such breaks are healthy and restorative, and in the end, improve learning.
Additionally, the number of encore classes offered under the umbrella of PE has grown significantly in the last three years at SPMS. Numerous dance classes, including Dance for Athletes, are incredibly popular, so much so that two classes were added for male students only.
Students participate in an Advisory lesson several times a week. The regular schedule is adjusted to allow time for students to engage in lessons that are less curriculum driven, but critical nonetheless. This time might be used to discuss and implement service learning projects, for instance. One of the most common themes is that teachers use this time to get students outside – for walks or games – just to get a little fresh air. Teachers incorporate Brain Gym activities. Inside or out, this time is often used for stretching and movement, knowing that such breaks are healthy and restorative, and in the end, improve learning.
Additionally, the number of encore classes offered under the umbrella of PE has grown significantly in the last three years at SPMS. Numerous dance classes, including Dance for Athletes, are incredibly popular, so much so that two classes were added for male students only.
2017: Students jump rope in the hallways as part of a brain and body break.
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More than 50 students participated in the Cool Schools Challenge of the Polar Bear Plunge in January 2018. This fundraiser, held at Sandy Point State Park, benefits the Special Olympics of Maryland.
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Dance for Athletes has grown exponentially since introduced in 2018. Two classes are reserved just for boy students.
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2011-12 & 2012-13 school years
Extracurricular Club: Environmental Club
Science Teacher, Mr. Philip sponsors an Environmental Club at Severna Park Middle School each Thursday after school. The program’s goal is to promote environmental awareness and create future stewards for the community and beyond. Mr. Philip emphasizes protection of the Chesapeake Bay and the two rivers which embrace the school community, the Severn and Magothy Rivers. Ms. Murphy, a sixth grade science teacher, has also joined Mr. Philip as a cosponsor in recent years.
The club has taken on many projects and experiences over the years. The projects include building and painting birdhouses and bird feeders for the school courtyards and surrounding areas, building and painting outdoor benches for use by both students and staff, painting "Chesapeake Bay Drainage" on all storm drains on school property, planting trees and shrubs in neighborhood step/run off gardens, planting trees on the school grounds to commemorate Earth Day, and helping to plan the Severna Park Earth Day Festival (specifically preparing over 300 seedlings for distribution each year at the festival). Club members also educate students and staff alike. They created light switch covers that reminded staff and students to turn off lights when they leave the room to reduce electricity usage.
The experiences are vast as well. The SPMS Environmental Club has attended the MAEOE Youth Summit at Sandy Point State Park annually for the past 5 years. The Club has also gone on many "Green" field trips including trips to the Phillip Merrill Environmental Center, Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Skipjack trip.
Science Teacher, Mr. Philip sponsors an Environmental Club at Severna Park Middle School each Thursday after school. The program’s goal is to promote environmental awareness and create future stewards for the community and beyond. Mr. Philip emphasizes protection of the Chesapeake Bay and the two rivers which embrace the school community, the Severn and Magothy Rivers. Ms. Murphy, a sixth grade science teacher, has also joined Mr. Philip as a cosponsor in recent years.
The club has taken on many projects and experiences over the years. The projects include building and painting birdhouses and bird feeders for the school courtyards and surrounding areas, building and painting outdoor benches for use by both students and staff, painting "Chesapeake Bay Drainage" on all storm drains on school property, planting trees and shrubs in neighborhood step/run off gardens, planting trees on the school grounds to commemorate Earth Day, and helping to plan the Severna Park Earth Day Festival (specifically preparing over 300 seedlings for distribution each year at the festival). Club members also educate students and staff alike. They created light switch covers that reminded staff and students to turn off lights when they leave the room to reduce electricity usage.
The experiences are vast as well. The SPMS Environmental Club has attended the MAEOE Youth Summit at Sandy Point State Park annually for the past 5 years. The Club has also gone on many "Green" field trips including trips to the Phillip Merrill Environmental Center, Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Skipjack trip.
