Barkley Bridge Elementary School faculty, students and parents have again demonstrated how great things can be achieved through teamwork.

The school launched a plan to build an outdoor classroom four years ago and got really serious about implementing it last summer.

Still, much was left to be done on the half-acre of hard ground adjoining the rear of the school building.

That changed on Oct. 19, when an estimated 600 volunteers, including the entire student body, came together to “build an outdoor classroom in just one day.”

What took place from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. that day was amazing to say the least. Adult volunteers, armed with rotary tillers, picks, shovels and hoes, took on the job of digging out walking paths and a drainage ditch, opening up holes for a bog and a dry creek streambed, building raised beds for flowering plants and shrubs and installing a white picket fence. Students, working in shifts grade by grade, provided valuable backup support. They helped weed existing flowerbeds, built raised bed gardens, moved rock and gravel from a storage area to the classroom site and helped replant flowerbeds.

When the workday ended at 2 p.m. the classroom was complete with a pavilion, songbird sanctuary, butterfly garden, weather station, dry creek streambed, a bog garden and several other learning stations.

The funds and materials for the classroom project came from grants from the General Electric Foundation and grant from State Sen. Arthur Orr along with donations from the school’s PTO, parents and grandparents of students and local businesses.

The outdoor classroom will provide hands-on, outdoor learning opportunities that allow students of all ages to utilize multiple-disciplinary skills in a fun and exciting environment.

This is another example of how teamwork is being used to provide a top quality education for the children of Hartselle. It’s also an example of why Barkley Bridge was named a U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon School last month.