Whitpain Supervisors Give Preliminary Approval to Wissahickon School District's Plans For Outdoor Classroom

A motion passed by the Whitpain township Board of Supervisors July 16 meeting has given Shady Grove Elementary School's Fiddleheads outdoor science program preliminary approval to take a spot of Prophecy Creek Park where Fiddleheads can build an outdoor nature center. 

The program, created for Shady Grove by four parents who wanted to work with teachers to enhance the school’s science program, started in 2010 with a Dow Chemical Co. 3-year grant.  

Since then, fiddleheads has brought students from Shady Grove to an outdoor classroom experience at the nearby Prophecy Creek Park.  As of now, according to fiddleheads founding mother Cynthia Watson, all of the K-5 science teachers in the Wissahickon School District have been trained.

Now, according to Watson, they want the fiddleheads program to have some sort of stability, such as outdoor amphitheater seating and a bird blind.  “If we want the program to sustain itself, we need to teach the teachers how to do outdoor lessons,” said Watson.     

Fiddleheads has obtained some funding for the amphitheater and Whitpain’s Shade Tree Commission will donate trees. The Ambler Rotary Club has raised money for the bird blind.

The motion in concept passed by the supervisors set aside land at the park for the classroom area, but the supervisors made clear that they require more specifics about the plan in order for it to progress.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing for children and so I ask parents to look into this more and support it, because the more kids we have involved the better the program will be and the more learn,” said board Chairman Joseph Palmer.