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New Discovery Zone energizes Fort Cherry

3 min read
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You can feel the energy outside Fort Cherry Elementary School – while seeing a lot of sciences at work.

“Everyone loves it. The kids love it,” Dr. Trish Craig said Tuesday afternoon at Fort Cherry Discovery Zone.

The district’s director of curriculum and instruction oversaw the official launch of the zone, a compact and immaculately tended space that is a visual treasure. It is essentially an outdoor classroom, featuring solar panels; a weather station; a vertical garden and shade garden; self-watering systems; and a living salsa wall, all enclosed by stylish white fencing.

Students in kindergarten through 12th grade are benefiting from the zone, which likewise is accessible to the public.

Finding the zone is simple: Look for the ecologically appealing mural on the side of the school, completed by students under the supervision of elementary art teacher Kimberly Harvey. Actually, except for the solar and weather setups, the kids have left their fingerprints on virtually every aspect of this green space.

The Discovery Zone was funded by a $20,000 STEAM grant for the 2015-16 school year. (STEAM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics). The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and Grable Foundation, both in Pittsburgh, have partnered with Chevron Corp. on STEAM grants for numerous schools in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Intermediate Unit 1 and Allegheny Intermediate Unit 3 manage these grants.

The Benedum and Grable foundations also funded a $10,000 Expanding Innovation Grant Fort Cherry is sharing with South Fayette School District. That grant, for the 2016-17 academic year, is managed by Remake Learning.

Although the “grand opening” was Tuesday, the Discovery Zone’s showpieces are a year old. AYA Instruments, from the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, installed the solar and weather stations in spring 2016. The mural was finished last summer. The zone, though incomplete, opened last September.

By contrast, the vertical garden, planted by students, was completed just last week.

Carl Lotz, sales manager at AYA, explained Tuesday his company installed two 235-watt solar panels just outside the fence. The energy they produce is stored in a unit inside the zone, and the unit provides 2,000 watts of continuous power to two AC outlets. Those outlets provide USB connections students can use.

“It’s a simple system in most solar setups, and an off-grid system,” Lotz said. “We wanted something like this because it’s something the kids can relate to.”

Weather conditions, courtesy the weather station, are posted and updated on the school district website.

For Fort Cherry, the completed zone is the latest upgrade in hands-on science. The high school dedicated its new greenhouse a mere seven weeks earlier.

The Discovery Zone is a learning zone, where young people can become familiar with a renewable resource – solar – and much more. The sciences on display there will likely have a bearing on the curricula at Fort Cherry.

You can feel the energy, and it is palpable.

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