Besides trees and benches, Menlo’s Upper School campus has gained a new pavilion in the redwood grove this school year.
According to Director of Operations and Construction Loren Arms, the pavilion was designed by science teacher David Spence and built by Menlo’s facilities team.
Spence, who has been at Menlo for 25 years and asking for an outdoor classroom for 10, says that he wants to protect projects from the rain in his Experimental Archaeology class. “The main reason to have the pavilion [is] particularly when we’re doing things like melting bronze, which will blow up if a raindrop falls on it,” Spence said.
“Experimental archeology is […] a field […] where you do a series of experiments to test hypotheses,” Spence said. “That involves things like making pottery, making furnaces and melting metals, so you need to be outside.”
However, Spence noted that it is better not to use the pavilion but to work in the redwood grove when there is clear weather. “It’s nice, sort of hanging out in the trees and being surrounded by the trees,” Spence said. “One of the best parts of having class outside in the Redwood Grove is that you’re in nature and you don’t feel like you are at school. There are times we like to work outside of the Pavilion to better appreciate being surrounded by the trees.”
Spence mentioned that there is still work to be done on the pavilion, including adding electrical outlets. “I would like to add […] a wall to one end of the pavilion where I could have the whiteboard and some shelving to store stuff,” Spence said. “And then behind that […] a sink where we could have water, because kids get dirty all the time, and we want to have water because it’s good for fires and things like that.”
There is currently no timetable for work on the pavilion, according to Arms. “We plan to get that done this year,” Arms wrote in an email to The Coat of Arms. “It’s likely something we’d start in a couple of months.”
Spence intends for the pavilion to be used for other classes as well. “It’s great to have an outer classroom space that can be used for lots of different classes,” he said.
English teacher Whitney Newton has used the pavilion once thus far for her English elective Literature of the American Wilderness. “It was just one of those days where I was like, literally, all we’re doing is talking and reading, so it could be anywhere,” Newton said. “I just felt like it would be nice to be in the redwoods and change the energy a bit.
Newton would enjoy the opportunity to use the space again. “[Spence has] been very generous about, like, ‘This isn’t my classroom, this is everyone’s classroom,’” she said. “It’s just a question of […] planning ahead and thinking about it, and, you know, I don’t think you have to be in a wilderness class to want to go outside and just enjoy that space.”
