Student Life · The Great Outdoors · Mooresville, NC

61 acres is not
a backdrop. It is
the curriculum.

At Woodlawn, the campus does not end where the classroom begins. Every acre of our 61-acre campus in Mooresville, NC — from the organic garden to the ropes course to the forested trails — is a learning environment in active use from PreK through graduation.

61
Acres · Mooresville, NC
55 min
Outdoor Activity · Every Day
PreK–12
All Divisions · PreK through 12
Organic
Garden · K through 6th Grade
The Great Outdoors · Every Division · Every Day

Learning moves
outside every single day.

Woodlawn students spend time outside every day, not as a break from learning but as an extension of it. Every student receives 55 minutes of outdoor activity each day, built into the schedule, not carved out of it. Movement, fresh air, and contact with the natural world are not supplemental at Woodlawn. They are part of the day from the very beginning.

A Kindergartner searching for frogs along the trail and a senior conducting field research for their Capstone are both doing the same thing: using the campus as a tool for understanding the world. The setting changes. The principle does not.

Outdoor Programs

Every acre in use.

Kindergarten through 6th Grade · Seasonal

The Organic Garden

Woodlawn’s organic vegetable and flower garden is an outdoor classroom for science, ecology, and the cycles of nature. Students plant, weed, harvest, and compost across fall and spring. At season’s end they bring home produce they grew themselves gaining a deeper understanding of where food comes from.

All Divisions · Daily

Patio Areas + Campus Trails

The forested trails, patio outdoor classrooms, and open fields are used by teachers in every division as extensions of the classroom. A science lesson moves outside to study ecosystems; a Lower School class holds morning meeting on the patio. The campus keeps students moving and engaged all day.

All Grades · Curriculum-Integrated

Sustainability + Conservation

Since Woodlawn’s founding, 61 acres of forested campus have been a core teaching asset. 6th Graders study the wildlife garden; 8th Graders investigate water protection. There’s always an opportunity to learn how we can all be better stewards to the environment that provides for us.

The Garden

Students grow more
than vegetables here.

Maintained using only organic gardening principles, the Woodlawn garden is a working outdoor classroom. Students experience the full cycle of food production: preparing soil, planting seeds, tending beds, managing pests without chemicals, harvesting, and composting what remains.

In the garden, ecology is not a concept in a textbook. Students watch pollinators work the plants. They learn why soil quality matters and what composted manure does that synthetic fertilizer cannot. They understand, in a way no diagram can convey, that living systems depend on each other. That understanding stays with them.

“Woodlawn helped me develop a deep connection to both the natural world and the creative process. The interdisciplinary approach I experienced here is exactly what I practiced at Dartmouth and continue to do so today.”
Bella J. '16 · Dartmouth College · Earth Science + Studio Art

Come see the campus
in person.

Tour Woodlawn’s 61-acre campus in Mooresville, NC and walk the outdoor spaces, garden, and trails that are part of the education every single day. We serve families across Mooresville, Davidson, Cornelius, Huntersville, and Lake Norman.

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