THE OAKS ACADEMY
The Oaks Academy Arboretum
2301 North Park Avenue
The Oaks Academy was established without much of a playground or any outdoor amenities.They approached KIB to build a pocket park / arboretum / outdoor classroom on the vacant lots across the alley from the school building. The City of Indianapolis is selling the land behind the school for them to use. The goal is to create a naturalistic play area for the kids that will also have all the plant material labeled so it can also be used as a learning, living, lab. Designed by Charles Steele, a landscape architect from Columbus, Indiana, the effect will be like having a little slice of Brown County right here in Center Township.
We started in 2008 by building mounds and planting a grove of trees on top of one of the mounds. In May of 2009, as part of the Lilly Day of Service, we transformed the playground, adding more mounds, with paths around and over them, more native plant material, and a shade shelter on top of one of the mounds.
In the fall of 2009, volunteers planted another mound with trees and shrubs. Work so far on the arboretum portion of the grounds has focused on planting trees. Future work will include limestone benches, the students researching and labeling the trees, and adding additional shrubs and flowers to the park area while leaving a large play meadow in the center.
"For our last art class in spring 2009, first graders took their nature notebooks and went out to the new play space to make a landscape drawing. We were out there about 20 minutes when a pair of mallards flew in and landed in the wet marsh (rain garden). All pencils dropped. The female duck began moving toward the children, and they moved closer to her. As she moved closer it became apparent to the children that she was injured: she was missing a foot and was “wad-hobbling” on her good one and the stump of her leg. A moan of distress went up from the children. “What happened to her, did a bad guy hurt her, did she get run over by a car….?”
The male mallard began a long quacking diatribe as he quickly moved to his mate’s side. One of the children said, “He’s talking to us!” Another one said, “I think he’s telling us not to come too close to his wife.” Another one said, “Maybe he’s telling us what happened.” The bird stopped honking and made what looked to be a bow toward the line of children. Spontaneously, the entire class bowed back. The mallards then turned around and moved back to the wet marsh, and the children, into the building. This was a priceless experience for us all." --Ruth Stark, Art Director, The Oaks Academy
