The Living Lab
Living Lab Highlights
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Aquatic Ecosystem: A tumbling waterfall, pond, and wetlands
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21,000 gallon rain water storage tank buried in the hillside
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A composting facility
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80% local native plant species
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botanic garden with representative groupings of the most common native plant communities
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60 trees planted by students as a memorial for student Anna Costa
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Memorial garden
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Wildlife habitat
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Capacity for three classes meeting at the same time
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A trail that loops around the site
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A greenhouse for propagation and germination projects
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A mural-covered storage shed that contains garden tools and class materials for teachers
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Meditation places
The Living Lab: An Overview
Bishop O’Dowd High School’s Living Laboratory is a spacious three-acre hillside site blessed with spectacular views of San Francisco Bay, bordering forested public land, and connected to the greenbelt of nearby Arroyo Viejo Creek. Until November of 2000 it was a generally neglected part of the campus-- severely eroded, covered with weeds, trash, and construction debris, and a haven for after-hours criminal activity.
Over the past decade, the cooperative efforts of O’Dowd’s students, faculty, parents, and alumni have transformed the site into an urban oasis for biodiversity and an outdoor environmental science classroom. Begun as a Jubilee year project unanimously endorsed by O’Dowd’s faculty, its design was based on input from several school-wide visioning meetings and feedback from surveys completed by members of the entire school community.
The Living Lab has grown to include native vegetation, a pond, waterfall, greenhouse, nursery, work shed, composting facility, memorial garden, trail system, redwood circle, meditative spaces, and several outdoor seating and gathering sites. The heart of this ecological restoration project is its aquatic ecosystem, in which rainwater collected from the school’s roof drains into the Living Lab site, is stored in underground cisterns, and then tumbles down a waterfall into a large pond, there to be filtered through its wetlands before being recycled back to the storage tanks for later use.
Students, faculty, parents, and alumni continue to nurture the Living Lab during monthly workdays and in special class projects. Use by various departments at the school has continued to expand as teachers discover that the Living Lab is an ideal setting-- academically, physically, and spiritually-- for applied and experiential learning, reflective and inspirational activities, team projects, investigative activities, and cross-curricular collaboration.
Numerous studies have indicated that such project-based, real-world, hands-on learning opportunities increase student academic achievement, competence, and self-esteem.
The Living Lab is often enjoyed informally as a place of sanctuary, renewal, and reconnection with the natural world-- or, in the words of O’Dowd’s Charism, a place where “finding God in all things calls us to… kinship with Creation.”
The Living Lab holds a leading reputation among school gardens and restoration sites and has been featured in several prominent newspaper stories lauding its unique scope, impressive student involvement, large size, ecological integrity, and scientific rigor. Perhaps most telling is the large number of alumni who have come back to O’Dowd to tell us how much their experiences in the Living Lab helped shape their college and career choices and how much pride they’ve felt in helping to create this unique living legacy at their alma mater.
As one of our recent graduates put it: “The Living Lab has helped the morale of the whole school. People can look up on the hill and see trees, grass, and flowers where before there was a virtual wasteland. It made me much more aware of the environment, of how beautiful God’s Earth is. I see how a few people can transform something back into beauty.”
2007 marked the unveiling of a new Master Plan for campus-wide improvements, renovations, and new buildings. A key element in these renewal efforts includes expansion of Science Department facilities. Current discussions are focused on the creation of a state-of-the-art, “green”, LEED-certified, multi-purpose, “showcase building” integrated into the Living Lab site for Environmental Science, Earth Science, and Applied Ecology classes.
Contact Annie Prutzman for more information and questions at:
aprutzman@bishopodowd.org
The Living Lab
"An oasis for biodiversity in the midst of the city"
The Living Laboratory has expanded the walls of the classroom into the natural world. The Living Lab is a place for building school community and for the renewal of the human spirit through connection with God’s creation. Students and volunteers helped design and install every part of the Living Laboratory, in the process experiencing the power of working hard as a group to heal this hillside site. A place that was once eroded, weedy, and neglected is now a vibrant outdoor classroom. The Living Lab directly reflects the school’s ESLR to “exhibit care and respect for the environment”.
It is the most extensive outdoor study site of any urban school in the country. The Lab’s design emphasizes ecological restoration and plants native to this area.
The Living Lab serves as a laboratory for our science classes, especially Connections, Biology, Environmental Science, Chemistry, and Earth Science. It is also widely used by art, foreign language, English, social studies, and physical education classes as an outdoor setting for reflective activities, team exercises, and special projects.
More About the Living Lab
The Living lab is loved by alumni and by our community:
http://www.bringingbackthenatives.net/2007gardens/Oakland/ODowd.html
Visit the
beginnings of the Living Lab.
Living Lab News
North Dakota Students Volunteer in Living Lab
A group of high school students from two North Dakota churches recently visited Bishop O'Dowd High School as part of their "Prairie to the Bay" service learning trip. Led by Pastor David Eppelsheimer and representing Sharon Lutheran Church of Grand Forks and Martin's Lutheran Church of Casselton, the group arrived on campus by bus on July 28, midway through their ten-day excursion across the West. Following a tour of the campus led by BOD sophomores Maya and Sage Tyler, the group of 35 students and their chaperones spent the morning and early afternoon working in the Living Lab-- weeding, mulching, pruning, and watering. Hosted by the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, the theme of their mission trip was "Daily Bread"-- to honor organizations with a strong commitment to serving community and the land. They spent three of their days here donating their labors to local Living Lab projects-- with the Oakland Food Connection, at Lakeview Elementary School, and at Bishop O'Dowd.
Living Lab Hosts Guests from Brookfield Elementary School
On last Saturday, May 15 the Living Lab hosted guests from Brookfield Elementary School in Oakland. They've recently begun their own "living lab" project under the leadership of their principal Adam Taylor and in collaboration with Trey Farmer, associate of Todd Jersey Architects and director of the Living Labs Project. Taylor and members of his staff were welcomed by a group of O'Dowd teachers (including Living Lab Director Annie Prutzman, Assistant Director Jeff Beeby, and Science Chair Tim Newman), their students, and several parent volunteers. The group took a tour of our facility, participated in a sheet-mulching project, and took clippings from our native plant garden. Those clippings are being propagated in our greenhouse and come fall will be transplanted to the emerging garden on the Brookfield campus.
Volunteers
You can volunteer and make an impact on the O'Dowd environment without sitting
in a meeting. Join us on the Living Lab work days; a green thumb is not required. Tasks involve coordinating and recruiting volunteers, planting, pruning, weeding, pond maintenance, minor construction, as well as contribution of snacks, tools and materials. If you do have advanced construction skills, we have a project for you!