The Campus Wild: Design for Outdoor Classrooms
Aloni Cahusac
Jacyl Ware
You don’t have to go far to get “Out There, Together!”
This workshop shifts the focus from off-campus expeditions to the regenerative ecosystems right outside our classroom doors. This session will use case studies of UWCSEA East campus’s nine environmental classrooms – creative and vibrant experiential spaces – found within our urban campus boundaries.
We’ll explore how to transform overlooked corners – from courtyards to roundabouts, rooftops to perimeter gardens – into living labs and environmental classrooms where students can connect deeply with nature every day. This is not Urban Gardening 101. This is the pedagogy of campus rewilding.
This session will explore the benefits of building sustainable, small-scale campus initiatives like seven-layer food forests, mud kitchens, composting systems, and chicken coops in order to strengthen place-based connections that foster community. Come and learn about how these little regenerative ecosystems and wild corners have become powerful tools for teaching sustainability, promoting student and staff well-being, all while reinforcing systems that bring our K-12 curriculum to life.
You will leave this session with inspiration and actionable strategies, which you can use to start or expand your own outdoor environmental classrooms on campus. This is campus rewilding – out there together.
About Aloni
Part-time mermaid and full-time educator, Aloni is a biologist and shark lover who is as comfortable working on a liveaboard diving expedition as she is in a Primary School classroom. Majoring in Wildlife Biology and Outdoor & Experiential Education, Aloni’s blue heart has always been guided by place-based learning and environmental conservation. With a career in international schools spanning nearly two decades, Aloni has embraced a unique challenge: bringing outdoor experiential learning to life in ‘concrete jungles’ like Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok.
A proud member of the UWC movement for the past 14 years, Aloni currently spends her time developing, designing, and coordinating environmental sustainability initiatives from K-12 at UWCSEA’s East Campus. She loves spending time with students in the zero-waste centre, composting bays, rooftop gardens, chicken coop, food forest and biodiversity pockets around campus. She is deeply committed to building rich bonds between people and the planet, for a more sustainable future.
About Jacyl
Jacyl is the Environmental Sustainability & Stewardship Specialist at UWCSEA East Campus, focusing on integrating sustainability principles across teaching and learning K-12. She has a strong background in experiential education, climate education, permaculture and fostering student-led initiatives.
