Glacial Hills Elementary School is reimagining education and community engagement. With innovative projects like the Eagles Nest Outdoor Learning Center, school staff are on a mission to foster lifelong learners deeply connected to their community and nature.

How is your group focused on bettering your community?

Glacial Hills Elementary School is an environmentally-focused school. We embrace project-based learning, student-centered instruction, and learning outside the classroom. Our goal is to develop students into life-long, passionate learners who are invested in their own education and their community. We aren’t hesitant to embrace unconventional methods to reimagine and revolutionize education to do so!

As a new component fund with West Central Initiative, what projects will the Glacial Hills Elementary School Fund support?

We’re excited to break our fund into three categories:

  • Capital funds will support building updates such as security systems, exterior door replacements, and a new parking lot and sidewalk.
  • Experiential learning donations will support field trips and hands-on, project-based learning experiences.
  • Donations to support scholarships will allow us to award up to two $250-600 scholarships each year to graduating seniors who attended Glacial Hills Elementary for their entire elementary career.

This allows our donors to choose how they wish to support our school.

What are you most excited about?

The project we’re most excited about is our outdoor learning center called the Eagles Nest. Our school received grants and community donations to transform the two acres behind the school to build an outdoor learning center and restore, maintain, and improve the health of the ecosystems of central Minnesota to include a rain and butterfly garden along with natural prairie grasses. This project will be designed and built by our 3rd through 6th grade students alongside community partners. This project also allows us to extend our love of the outdoors and mother nature with the community as this center will be open to the public outside of school hours. 

Are the kids excited about outdoor learning?

Students and staff thrive when they can learn outdoors! For years, studies have shown the proven benefits of nature on humans. It only makes sense to capitalize on these benefits for our most prized natural resource: children. Children who are allowed to explore the great outdoors have better motor skills and greater decision-making skills, are better able to solve problems, and are more able to recognize their own interconnectedness with the ecosystems surrounding them. Outdoor play gives children practical life experiences and the initiative to engage with nature, as well as those around them, in a more positive way.

The horticulture, wildlife, and outdoor recreation and wellness classes allow us to teach the five indicators of our environmental literacy plan: awareness, knowledge, attitudes, skills, and action. Students gain knowledge about how natural systems function and how human systems interact with and depend on them. All the while, they also gain and demonstrate respect and concern for the earth’s health and participate in environmental stewardship. 

The Eagles Nest connects your students with community volunteers, neighbors, and organizations. Why is it important to build connections for students, faculty, and the community?

This project is innovative in its design and will have a lasting impact on our students and community. While Starbuck, Minnesota, has many wonderful assets, our city has experienced loss over the last decade. Many jobs have left the area. People often commute to other cities. There just isn’t the strong sense of community there once was. We know our school can help fill this role. Students creating for students with the help of community partners is a creative way to have students apply learned content and skills. It naturally builds a stronger sense of community, improving school and community culture. Students are creating a lasting legacy by developing an outdoor learning center for kids to play, learn, and explore environmental education without having to leave our campus. It provides community families with another safe and nurturing environment for them to learn, grow, and thrive outside the school day.

What does community support mean to you?

Each year we are amazed by the community members who reach out to volunteer, involve our students in community activities, or donate to the school. It is easy to see that our community believes children are the most important investment for our future. The Starbuck Legion and VFW involve our students in civic activities, and a retired paraprofessional volunteers at least quarterly to teach students about environmental education or lead activities at Holly Skogan, our local troll park!

What shocked our Glacial Hills family the most was the financial support we received from the community and county when we conducted a capital campaign to remodel our school to expand our preschool programming and update the learning spaces to reflect our mission and values. In the end, over $105,000 was raised in four short months. And if that wasn’t enough, our neighbors at Holly Ridge Manor granted us land access to build the outdoor learning center. With this generosity and caring community, anything is possible!

How has the partnership with West Central Initiative benefited your cause?

The staff are friendly, local, supportive, and attentive to our needs! It is also amazing to connect with an organization that is passionate about the same things we are!

Support Glacial Hills Elementary School by donating to its fund.