By Ian Goldenberg – GCS Junior

I have been a member of BSA Troop 11 of Gastonia, NC for a little over 5 years, and during that time, I have had the opportunity to witness multiple Gaston Christian School (GCS) alumni pass through and achieve Eagle. As a result of this experience, I saw the need to give back to the school that had given me so much. I decided to take on a project that would benefit the students and teachers of GCS.

The official project name was the Gaston Christian School Outdoor Education Center, located in a clearing beside cross-country trails behind the GCS utility shed. The idea for the project came from elementary teachers who had been taking their classes to this clearing to teach already, but they had been using stumps as seating, which had begun to rot. These teachers suggested the project, and I took it up.

The entire project began around September and ended in December, spanning over four months. The project required a lot of planning and paperwork, but thanks to the support of my fellow troop members and the GCS community, I was able to complete it successfully. We had a total of 27 volunteers who worked on this project, including myself. 19 of these volunteers were GCS students, mostly high schoolers. We worked in the rain and it all got very muddy. It was a very arduous process, especially on the second day, when the muddy ground caused complications. I accidentally caused the entire whiteboard structure to become unstable and fall on my dad and another volunteer! Thankfully no one was injured (except for some bruises). I also fell into a posthole while maneuvering the whiteboard! We also broke the two bags of concrete as we attempted to lift them, resulting in a clean-up.

The project phases included clearing the area of growth and debris, laying/hammering in a wooden perimeter, laying down mulch, staining/transporting wooden picnic benches to the site, constructing a roof, swinging doors, and legs for a large weather-proof whiteboard, and transporting the whiteboard structure to the site, digging postholes, and cementing it in place.

I wanted to do this particular project to help students at my school engage directly with nature and the environment while also learning about it. This is important as many ecosystems around the world have already been destroyed and exploited by humans, and we must work to educate future generations about protecting our planet. According to Outside Magazine, an Outdoor Foundation Study released on January 29, 2019, found that children in the US took part in 15 percent fewer outdoor activities in 2018 than they did six years before. Being outside is important for our mental health and overall well-being. Spending time in nature has been found to help with mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. Helping students improve their mental well-being is becoming more and more crucial as it has declined in children and teens in the US rapidly in recent years. The classroom would also allow science students to analyze data collected from experiments performed outdoors quickly and on-site, without having to return to the classroom to do so.

Now that the project is complete, a calendar will be set up soon for teachers to reserve times to use the classroom, and the code for the whiteboard lock will be distributed to the teachers soon. I intend to keep improving the outdoor classroom in the future, with the hope of having enough funds to add planters to attract pollinators and signs with info on native flora and fauna.

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