STAPLETON, Ala. (WALA) - Stapleton School in a rural part of Baldwin County received certification Wednesday for its outdoor classroom from the Alabama Wildlife Federation.

“We’re very delighted,” said Principal Jim Perry. “Our school is a terrific little rural school, small school. And we have a lot of advantages as a small school but one of the disadvantages is we don’t have some of the things that a larger school might have like a STEM lab or full-time STEM teacher, but we have a beautiful outdoor campus.”

The outdoor classroom initiative, which began around two decades ago, has transformed an empty grass parking lot into a dynamic educational space. What started with a simple butterfly garden has now expanded into a series of diverse learning stations. “We have a measuring wall, where students can compare their width to wingspan of {Alabama} birds so they have a real way to get to get a sense of what widths,” explained Perry. “In addition, the butterfly garden there’s a pollinator garden of course the importance of bees and other pollinators so we help our kids to learn about them.”