A program that will begin in January at École James S. McCormick School, means your old Christmas tree can become a new learning environment for kids.

The old donated trees will be used as part of a natural playground for students to learn in. This is a program from the Everactive provincial initiative that aims to help healthy school communities, and those that run it will be using the opportunity to research how it impacts their learning.

The principal of the school, Tracy Duckett says this seemed to be an obvious choice for them since they have already started getting in touch with the environment with an outdoor classroom.

“Taking students outside and learning in the outdoors through play, and investigation or exploration, and creativity,” says Duckett when asked what the benefits of this type of learning are.

Those that run the program will take the old Christmas trees, and turn them into a type of forested area for the kids to explore.

The school is one of three in the province that will be experimenting with the nature project.

“The people who are coming to essentially take the children outside to play in nature are actually going to use the trees to set up a forest.”

The kids will be doing everything from math and science to team building and problem-solving. The goal is to promote the curricular objective while still encouraging them to get outside.

“Since we can’t get to a forest easily, they are bringing a forest to us,” says Duckett. 

Christmas trees can be dropped off at the school at any time over the holidays or when school is back in.