Make Way for Robots!

‘There is something very welcoming and inclusive about an oval-shaped space. It’s not totally equal, like a circle, so could have small groupings or one larger group. Its more flexible, very comprehensible, accessible.’  -Marita Roos, NDC Programs Director

The newest Treating & Teaching outdoor classroom at Glenridge Elementary School in Landover Hills will provide a simple oval space to facilitate gathering and learning, protected by shade sails and surrounded by groupings of native plants. A challenging robotics course traverses the classroom space, with mounds, boulders and rock obstacles for the school’s award-winning robot inventors to circumvent. 

This fall, Glenridge students and teachers will spend time in the outdoor classroom planting even more native landscaping with plants from the Arbor Day Every Day and Clean Up Green Up programs… not to mention racing their robotics projects in this enriching learning space!

Facilitated by Anacostia Watershed Society, Treating & Teaching is an innovative collaboration involving public school educators, curriculum planners and environmental designers that provides professional development for faculty and outdoor classroom design and installation at select schools. NDC landscape designers Marita Roos and Laura Kendrick collaborated with Glenridge Elementary School faculty and staff and the Anacostia Watershed Society to create their outdoor classroom space.

This project was made possible by the CBT Stormwater Stewardship Grant, through Prince George’s County Department of the Environment.