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  • Turning nature into a classroom for young minds

    NorthJersey.com, NJ
    Jan 21 2005

    Turning nature into a classroom for young minds

    Friday, January 21, 2005

    By CATHERINE HOLAHAN
    STAFF WRITER


    NEW MILFORD - Saving energy to energize minds.

    That could be a new motto at the Hovnanian School, where teachers and
    students are trying to raise $118,000 to construct a greenhouse and
    garden learning center that runs completely on alternative energy
    sources.

    "I think it's appropriate for the kids to grow up in this kind of
    environmentally sensitive surrounding," said Vahak Hovnanian, founder
    of the Armenian private school in New Milford.

    The pre-K-8 school was started 29 years ago by Hovnanian to educate
    the region's growing Armenian student population in the Armenian and
    French languages, as well as connect the students to their ancestral
    culture. The school has 200 students from Bergen County and New York.

    "America is beautiful because we have so many different nationalities
    living here, and we are part of the mosaic," Hovnanian said. "We
    don't want to lose our color in that beautiful garden that we all are
    in."

    Teachers and parents came up with the idea for the garden learning
    center last year as a way to utilize land around the school to teach
    students about nature and science, and have space for outdoor
    classes.

    Miriam Kaprielian, the parent of a seventh-grade student, volunteered
    to head the committee to develop the plans and raise funds for the
    center.

    Kaprielian contacted friend David Delardi of Wayne-based Landscape
    Perceptions and Lynn Stile, a professor of physics at Richard
    Stockton College and a geothermal technology expert, to design the
    center.

    Plans call for construction of a greenhouse heated by coils or pumps
    that are installed deep underground and draw heat from the earth.
    Floor lighting for the center will be solar-powered, and rainwater
    will be collected in a cistern and pumped out to nourish the
    greenhouse plants, Kaprielian said.

    School faculty also hope to have a bird-feeding station, a place for
    wind instruments, a pond, a sunken outdoor classroom for poetry and
    English courses, and a human checkerboard where the kids take the
    role of the pieces.

    Kaprielian said that nearly all the courses have designed curriculum
    that would utilize some feature of the greenhouse and garden. Science
    classes will teach about various forms of energy and plants, computer
    classes will log information gathered through experiments in the
    garden, and the English and language classes will use the outdoor
    classroom on warm days.

    "We are very excited," Kaprielian said. "The hard part is raising the
    money."

    The school has raised $11,886 of the total cost. On Saturday and
    Sunday, a yard sale will be held at the school to raise money. A
    specially made quilt will be auctioned off on Sunday.

    Varak Baronian, a 13-year-old seventh-grader, said he is looking
    forward to the center.

    "It will be a nice place to be with your friends and study," he said.
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