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In 1990, a teacher’s request to plant a vegetable garden in a small strip of dirt grew into a vision to “green” the entire schoolyard. It took seven years of hard work to remove the asphalt and build one of the country’s most distinctive learning environments: the Tule Elk Park Child Development Center (TEP).
Tule Elk Park provides a high quality early childhood education that values the importance of relationships, diversity, literacy, creativity, high individual expectations, and the natural world so all children will realize their full potential.
TEP enrolls 196 pre-kindergarten and elementary school children in the full-day and after-school program. More than 90% of the children are English language-learners, representing 25 languages and 20 ethnic backgrounds. Approximately 62% are Asian, 7% Latino/Hispanic, 14% other White, 10% other non-White, and 7% African American. Five percent of the students are children with special needs.
TEP’s diversity is rich and multifaceted, both ethnically (children, families, and staff) and socio-economically (low-income and middle-income families). TEP also has the privilege and challenge of serving children with a broad range of ability levels (e.g., typically developing, gifted, and children with identified and unidentified severe to moderate special needs) and who are from one-parent, two-parent, guardian, and same sex-parent families.
TEP is currently developing Phase II of Tule Elk Park, an outgrowth of the building of the park nearly 10 years ago. This second phase will provide a new outdoor area that encourages creative, open-ended, child-centered, investigative and complex play. See www.tep-explostation.org.
The Energy Laboratory consists of an outdoor alternative energy play area and an indoor construction/electronic area. In the outdoor area, water, wind, sun, and muscle power combine to facilitate play illustrating energy and water-use issues. A solar-powered electrical pump, a kid- and wind-powered mechanical pump, and natural precipitation fill a tall transparent water column to store energy and water in a highly visible and accessible form. Pressurized water from this column can be used to run a variety of play activities, such as a water-wheel, sand wetting/eroding, fountains, waterfalls, a hydroelectric turbine, and/or watering plants. By watching the water level evolve against prominent markings children can learn numeracy as well as play with the physics and economy of energy and water use.
The Stations Dramatic Play Area consists of play cells that allow children to have sought-after small places for hiding but open enough for adult supervision, with trellis and plantings hanging above cell area; incorporates recycled construction materials; and meets ADA standards.
For more information, see www.tuleelkpark.org
