Farmers Insurance rewarded a sixth-grade teacher in Idaho with a $100,000 grant to pay for an outdoor classroom, which includes a greenhouse, a garden and fish habitats.
Paula Brockman, an English and geography teacher at Lowell Scott Middle School, is one of six educators who won the Farmers Dream Big Teach Challenge. The award is the biggest non-technological grant an educator has ever received in the West Ada School District, near Boise, officials said.
A teacher at Lowell Scott for 10 years, her idea for an outdoor classroom was popular among the contest’s voters on Farmers’ website.
Brockman said her outdoor classroom idea “allows more opportunity to step outside the classroom and learn in a different way.” She said she thinks there needs to be a variety of methods for kids to learn, and not just completely rely on technology.
“Some of us don’t feel our students (are in) touch with nature like maybe some of us who grew up more outdoors than indoors,” she said.
Brockman worked with other teachers to develop the concept, but had no way to finance it until she was invited to apply for the grant from Farmers.
