Outdoor Classroom

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St. Mark’s Episcopal Academy is blessed with a truly unique learning space: the Al Glover Memorial Chapel and Outdoor Classroom, a covered pier that extends directly into the Indian River Lagoon. Built in 2019 through the generosity of parishioners and dedicated community members, this space was described in Florida Today as “a labor of community love.” It serves not only as a chapel but also as a living laboratory where faith, science, and stewardship come together.

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For decades, St. Mark’s has brought students to the lagoon for shoreline classes and nature walks. The outdoor classroom expanded these opportunities, giving students an immersive setting to study the lagoon—recognized as the most biologically diverse estuary in the continental United States, home to more than 4,000 species of plants and animals.

Since opening, the space has hosted:
   •    Oyster gardening, a project St. Mark’s students have engaged in for nearly 10 years to help filter the lagoon’s waters.
   •    Water-quality research, enabled in 2021 by annual fundraiser donations that provided underwater cameras and sensors to track salinity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, pH, and temperature.
   •    Mangrove planting and shoreline restoration in partnership with the Brevard Zoo’s Restore Our Shores program. Students now tend both new and mature mangroves, which provide critical habitat for fish, crabs, shrimp, frogs, barnacles, sponges, and even spiny lobsters.
   •    Marine life observation, with frequent visits from manatees, dolphins, osprey, and herons right alongside the pier.
   •    River Kidz meetings, where students learn civic engagement, advocacy, and stewardship of public spaces.

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The outdoor classroom is a place where students learn science by doing: launching kayaks to study mangroves and seagrass, measuring water chemistry, or recording animal species spotted along the shoreline. But it also serves as a place for inspiration—where children read poetry, share lunch outdoors, and take in the lagoon’s salty air and endless sky.

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The outdoor classroom is central to our vision for environmental education. It anchors our STEAM program’s marine science focus in four key areas: water quality, marine debris, animal species, and seagrass. It also opens the door for future collaborations with organizations from the Brevard Zoo to the Wildlife Hospital and the scientists, engineers, and economists leading the charge to restore the Indian River Lagoon.

At St. Mark’s, the lagoon is not just something to study—it is a part of our campus, our community, and our responsibility.