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Outdoor classrooms are sprouting like mushrooms in schools across Frederick County.

From schoolyard wetlands and meadows to gardens where students use flowers to monitor ozone pollution in the air, schools are creating their own backyard habitats where students can study native plants and animals.

Many of them participate in the schoolyard habitat program, which encourages schools to create opportunities for students to get out, get dirty and through hands-on lessons learn about the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

The program is available in 15 Frederick County schools. Three new schools — Deer Crossing Elementary, Urbana High and Brunswick High — started this year, and more are likely to join in the future, said April Wells, the teacher specialist who coordinates schoolyard habitats.

"I get e-mails from people about this all the time," Wells said. "We have three or four more schools that may be joining next year."

The schoolyard habitat program allows Frederick County Public Schools to fulfill the Chesapeake Bay 2000 agreement, which requires students in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia to learn about the Chesapeake Bay through hands-on projects and activities. In Maryland, students have to participate in three such projects — in elementary, middle and high school.

The schoolyard habitat program allows students to gain these experiences in the backyard of their own schools without having to take a field trip, Wells said.

In Frederick County, the schoolyard habitat program started at nine schools as a pilot thanks to a grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust. A local conservation group called Community Commons then helped the school system secure another three-year, $200,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Now, the school system has secured a three-year $300,000 grant to fund the schoolyard habitat program in 15 schools through 2012.

The grant pays for Wells' salary and allows her to hold workshops and training for teachers in schools that are new to the schoolyard habitat initiative. She helps individual schools launch their own schoolyard habitats, and connects teachers with agencies and partnerships that provide grants and support for schoolyard habitats.

Meanwhile, Wells also works with schools that have launched schoolyard habitats and outdoor classroom initiatives independently of the Chesapeake Bay Trust program.

Wells estimates that nearly half of the 64 schools in the county have in some shape or form worked to develop an outdoor habitat for students.

In order to launch a habitat program, schools plan a habitat that is appropriate for their area, engage students in planting trees, shrubs or flowers and then use the area for different hands-on projects.

One of the oldest and most advanced schoolyard habitats in the system are the Great Herron Wetlands at Urbana Elementary.

The project was launched nine years ago with community funding and now includes 1.7 acres of reclaimed wetlands. Over the years, students and staff at the school have planted numerous plant species in the wetlands, creating a place that attracts all kinds of bugs, fish, frogs and birds.

The school now uses the wetlands in various projects in biology, geography or even English. Fifth-graders even used the wetlands in photography and created a 2009 calendar of photos of plant and animal species in the wetlands, said Jeff Esko, the fifth-grade teacher who coordinates the project at Urbana Elementary.

This year, the school will continue improving and expanding the wetlands by putting in a water feature run on solar energy. "Over the years, over 2,000 students have helped with this project," Esko said.

Now other schools are using that model to develop their own schoolyard habitats and incorporate them in classroom activities.

At Brunswick High School, for example, students have planted "ozone gardens" with black-eyed Susans and cutleaf coneflowers — both types of plants that can detect high presence of ozone in the air. Students study the plants for leaf damage and this way monitor for ozone pollution.

At Middletown High School, on the other hand, in the last two years, students have planted about 200 trees as part of their schoolyard habitat initiative, said Sharon Steger, a biology and environmental science teacher at the school.

Eventually, students at the school are planning to create a habitat including a meadow, butterfly garden and a hummingbird area, Steger said.

"It's all part of their hands-on component," she said. "It is all about getting their hands dirty and their feet wet."

Deer Crossing Elementary became involved in the schoolyard habitat program this year, and already fifth-graders at the school have helped plant 69 trees, said fifth-grade teacher Tony Freeman.

"We wanted to get into the green side of education," he said. "We thought this was an opportunity to do that."

Freeman said the tree planting this year was both educational and fun for his students, who got to choose what trees should be planted at their school, based on the soil, climate and other conditions in the area. "That made it so much more theirs," he said. "They took so much more pride in finding those trees."

E-mail Margarita Raycheva at mraycheva@gazette.net.