Pathway To Discovery
Welcome to the Pathway to Discovery
The Pathway to Discovery began as a summer “Exploring Nature” program in the 1970’s. The ¼ mile trail featured numbered sign posts with an accompanying pamphlet that blended environmental education with the physical exploration of our natural world.
Over the years, the trail became overgrown and the pamphlets outdated. In 2021, Montessori Radmoor reclaimed and expanded the Pathway to Discovery, extending its length, establishing new native plant gardens and dedicated native tree installations, while removing invasive species and promoting conservation and environmental sustainability.
Montessori Radmoor’s goal for the Pathway to Discovery is to create an immersive experience, pairing educational signage with a beautiful walk in the woods.
Upcoming Events
Serra Calda
Montessori Radmoor’s Serra Calda – which is Italian for “hot house” or “house of the earth” – is heavily used by all ages of our student body. In this greenhouse we teach farm to table methodology, agricultural practices, sustainable use and organic ideology, and the botanical and horticultural sciences. Radmoor students plant, maintain, and harvest a vast variety of vegetables, flowers, perennials, and trees while hosting an annual plant sale every fall, using the proceeds to fund the next year’s seed and plant purchases. This sale is also used as a part of an economics lesson in Upper Elementary. Serra Calda has a dedicated “classroom pet” garden plot that grows vegetables specifically to feed Radmoor’s pet animals.
Trees
Montessori Radmoor is surrounded by a lush forest that shelters the campus and provides year-round beauty. Every autumn, the children gather and play in the multi-colored leaves that blanket the ground. The trees on campus are studied in biological lessons on biomes, tree structures, and ecosystem processes. Our native Sugar Maple trees are tapped by the students to make maple syrup! In a continuing effort, the staff and students will be managing our forest together by removing invasive species and strategically replanting a diverse array of native trees.
Mammals
Montessori Radmoor is very lucky to share its grounds with a diverse community of wildlife. In 2022, an on-going elementary experiment was introduced with the establishment of 3 trail cameras. The students identify game trails through observation and tracking and then place the cameras in those locations to capture images of the animals that move through the grounds. Upper elementary has mammal skulls, hides, and deer antlers for the students to examine and study. Radmoor students have had many different mammals as classrooms pets, including rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, and degus.
Fungi
Starting in Spring 2022 our resident mushroom expert, Miss Jackie will be bringing fungi cultivation to our grounds. Miss Jackie is a state certified mushroom expert who loves to share her love of mycology with the children. Once the maple syrup starts flowing we will start innoculating shiitake logs and buidling a wine cap bed. Students will learn the basics of how mycelium grows and runs. We will touch on the basics of cultures, innoculation, appropriate substrates and how the fruiting bodies even occur.
Reptiles
Montessori Radmoor hosts a variety of native reptiles that inhabit our wetlands, trails and gardens. Turtle and snake sightings are very common and always exciting! The best places to spot snakes hunting on campus are along the trail near the reptile sign, around the greenhouse, and along the wetland edge near the bat houses. Snapping turtles have been commonly sighted in and along the deeper wetlands northeast of the bat sign. Radmoor also has two classroom pet snakes that the students get to see up close – a ball python in P3 named Udon and an albino ball python in E1 named Ramen.
Compost and Brush Piles
Honoring our commitment to environmental sustainability, Montessori Radmoor has dedicated several areas on our grounds to permanent brush piles for the benefit of our wildlife and to reduce our organic contributions to landfills. All classrooms at Radmoor collect food waste that can be composted and add it to an established composting site. Radmoor also has dedicated bins in every room around the school that collect paper, cardboard, metal, glass, and plastic in an effort to promote recycling and reduce waste. The brush piles on campus are being studied by our students to see what kinds of animals are taking advantage of them. Through track identification, they’ve already learned that rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, and groundhogs are using them as cover and a red fox has been identified hunting around the large brush pile to the southeast of the compost/brush pile sign.
Amphibians
In the warm months of the year, the soundtrack for Montessori Radmoor’s campus is the chorus of frogs that find safe haven in our wetlands. Frogs and toads are easy to find just about everywhere on campus and are a good indicator of the health of our grounds. Gray tree frogs, that range in color from gray to bright green, are found in abundance in the pollinator gardens on either side of Radmoor’s main entry doors.
Wetlands
Montessori Radmoor is very fortunate to border a small marsh land that is filled with diverse wildlife and beautiful vistas. The wetland edge is a popular place for students to look for and identify animal tracks and to bird watch. The presence of a wetland on our grounds helps as a visual and tangible teaching tool regarding its role as a vital ecosystem and how easily human behavior can affect it.
Birds
If there’s one animal you will see a lot of on the campus of Montessori Radmoor, it is birds! Radmoor hosts an impressive array of migratory birds and permanent residents. In 2019, a Radmoor Alumni Girl Scout established multiple, colorful birdhouses along the Pathway to Discovery. That same year, through a grant from the Audubon Society, Radmoor’s first bird-friendly native plant garden was established next to the Peace Garden. Montessori Radmoor’s Observation Deck – built by a Radmoor Alumni Eagle Scout – has become a dedicated bird watching platform. The planting of wildlife friendly species of native trees and plants are prioritized in our efforts to maximize the health and diversity of our forest and the creatures that depend on it.
Changing Land
The Pathway to Discovery shows us many things along its winding route, but the “Erosion Area” is one of the most tactile and visually helpful in illustrating the dynamics of earth processes. This area is an obvious representation of how the power of water can move soil, sticks, and rocks and how the exposed tree roots are fighting to hold it all together. This area also lends itself to a beloved learning unit called “The River Model” in Elementary, where the children pile sand and mud on a wood and clay model riverbed and watch how water changes and carries the earth.
Bats
In 2021, Montessori Radmoor’s Upper Elementary students began an extensive learning unit on the biology of bats. As a part of this unit, the students constructed five bat houses in the hopes of establishing a permanent colony of bats on the campus. These structures will be redesigned, reconstructed, and replaced as needed as an ongoing commitment to this goal.
Pollination
Pollination is a much discussed and studied part of the biology curriculum at Montessori Radmoor. In 2021, a grant was obtained to start our own permanent honeybee colony. Staff and students will maintain the hives in bee boxes located in a dedicated honeybee garden. This project is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2022. The bee box garden area is tentatively planned to be located along the tree line just northwest of the pollination sign.
Bugs
A favorite topic amongst students of all ages, Montessori Radmoor hosts a vast array of bugs. Insect identification plays an important role in our greenhouse management as the children learn which are helpful to our plants and which are damaging. Dragonflies and damselflies are our resident predators of pesky mosquitoes and they are always a very welcome sighting! Milkweed growing on either side of the front pollinator gardens plays host to the beloved, but declining monarch butterflies whose caterpillars depend upon it for survival. Ladybugs are also a common sighting in our greenhouse, eating the small aphids that would otherwise damage the plants that our students worked so hard to grow.