When Matt Shields first walked the wooded trail behind J.P. McCaskey High School four years ago, the outdoor classroom was easy to miss. “It was completely overgrown,” recalled Shields, the School District of Lancaster’s Director of Facilities and Building Operations. “You didn’t know there was a trail there. The sign was hidden.”
Today, the trail is visible again. This summer, a crew of young people spent two weeks making sure students wouldn’t miss it again.
Through a partnership among the School District of Lancaster, Let’s Go 1-2-3 and the Pennsylvania Outdoor Corps, the crew worked at McCaskey and Elizabeth R. Martin School to clear trails, remove invasive plants and prepare outdoor classrooms for students and teachers.
This was the second summer SDoL hosted a Pennsylvania Outdoor Corps crew. The program, administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources in partnership with the Student Conservation Association, gives high school students and recent graduates paid experience working on conservation projects.
Last year, most of the participating youth came from other school districts. This year, McCaskey students joined the Lancaster crew.
At McCaskey, accessibility was one of the main priorities. Crew members resurfaced approximately 60 feet of trail using material donated by Allan Myers Inc. and transported with help from the City of Lancaster.
They removed European buckthorn, Asian bittersweet and nonnative bush honeysuckle that had crowded the wooded area. They also transplanted native sedges, collected trash and helped maintain young trees planted in 2024 in memory of the late Brother Frank Albrecht.
The work at E.R. Martin followed the stream beside the school’s outdoor classroom. Crew members cleaned the benches and tables, removed debris from the trail and stream and cleared invasive plants including multiflora rose, mugwort and Japanese stiltgrass.
Native pawpaw trees were planted along the stream. Pawpaws support zebra swallowtail butterflies and add another plant students can study when classes use the space.
“Trees, shrubs and plants are the foundation,” said Lydia Martin, Director of Community Engagement for Let’s Go 1-2-3. “They help us to have clean air, clean water and protect the environment for all of us.”
Let’s Go 1-2-3 offers free nature-based programming and works to remove barriers that can keep children and families from spending time outdoors. The organization helped coordinate the summer projects with SDoL staff and the Pennsylvania Outdoor Corps.
Participating youth earned a paycheck while learning to identify native and invasive plants, maintain trails and restore outdoor spaces. They also met with representatives from the partner organizations to discuss careers in conservation, environmental education, parks and public service.
“It’s a paid service opportunity,” Martin told the crew. “You learn as you go, and you also get professional development.”
Luke Foster, Lancaster Youth Crew Coordinator, worked alongside the crew throughout the six-week program. He said one of the most rewarding parts of the job was watching the students become more comfortable with one another and the work. “I definitely enjoy working with the crew members, seeing what they’re interested in, seeing them develop and get out of their shells a little more as the season progresses,” Foster said.
The restored classrooms are part of a broader effort to make better use of the green spaces already available across SDoL. “The district as a whole has a commitment to providing outdoor classroom spaces,” Shields said. “While we are an urban school district, most of our campuses do have some acreage, and we’re able to leverage that to provide outdoor spaces and classroom experiences.”
SDoL already has lesson plans for its outdoor classrooms, and McCaskey student clubs plan to continue working on the campus during the school year. The district is also restoring an older fitness trail and looking at ways to use school gardens, rain gardens and other outdoor areas for instruction.
Maintaining those spaces requires help beyond the district’s facilities staff, whose daily work is largely focused on school buildings.
“I can provide the facility,” Shields said. “I need help to maintain the facility.” The partnership will continue this fall with another phase of native tree planting at McCaskey in honor of Brother Frank Albrecht. The event is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 24, from 9 a.m. to noon. More information will be shared as the date approaches.
For the McCaskey students who joined the crew, the result sits on their own campus. They can point to the trails they cleared, the plants they protected and the outdoor classroom their classmates can now use.
