Schooling Santee: Carlton Hills' Candy Stotz

For years, Candy Stotz and her students looked at a weeded area from their classroom window at . Because of the second-grade teacher’s hard work, her students will soon get to experience an Outdoor Science Classroom in the once useless area.

Last year, Stotz decided to do something about the space and applied for grants. Carlton Hills has since received $6,000 in grant monies, as well as donations, for the project. 

“It just drove me crazy,” Stotz said. “, and I couldn’t stand looking at that.”

Once completed, the outdoor classroom space will consist of trees, plants and benches. There will be a rocks and minerals station, weather station, butterfly garden and a pond habitat.

“I like getting kids outside, because in second grade, it’s tough to be inside sitting in a chair all day,” Stotz said.

The Outdoor Science Classroom will be an area where kindergarten through fourth-grade students can , animals, , plants, rocks, soil and more.  

“With life cycles, you can imagine reading about it in a book, or actually watching a butterfly hatch from a cocoon,” Stotz said. “It’s just priceless to be able to physically see it and touch it.”

Every year, Stotz and other teachers raise chickens, butterflies and other insects in their classrooms to teach their students about life sciences. Stotz is excited to expand on those lesson plans, she said. 

“Everything that we learn about in our textbook, I’m hoping that two-thirds of it we can do out here, hands-on,” she said. “That will be so much fun for the kids. It will be so much fun to watch. I can’t wait!”

In September, volunteers helped pull weeds and prepare the site. Planters have been constructed since then, with help from grants provided by and the , as well as blocks donated from . The next step is planting along the hillside and in the new planters.

“This is looking so much more beautiful than I ever, ever imagined,” Stotz said.

Prior to this project, Stotz had never applied for grants. She said it was “a learning experience and a lot of luck.”

Because she “was on a roll,” Stotz applied and received a $5,000 grant for student responder technology.  

“It was just a lucky year,” Stotz said. “With the budget being like it is, it was either that or just look at this all the time. I thought I can either be that kind of person or I can be the kind that tries to do something about a bad situation.”

is important to Stotz, which is what prompted her to do something about the area.

Stotz grew up in Northern California, where conservation, she said, is emphasized.

“It just stayed with me,” she said. “I don’t waste anything.”

Although mostly weeds, Stotz said the land next to Building A was watered each night and mowed once a week.

The Outdoor Science Classroom will enable the school to save water and man hours. It will also help teach students about sustainability. Stotz said there will be a worm composter where children can put their chopped-up lunch leftovers and watch worms turn their waste into soil.

“It was hideous, really ugly,” she said. “And, there was really nothing we could do with it. The kids didn’t use it. This will be something that will be entirely usable.”

The school hopes to have the project completed sometime this spring, Stotz added.

“My goal is to kind of eliminate all this wasted space a little bit at a time with anything that I can do to help,” she said.