The Dundas Valley Montessori School is investing about $1 million to help teenage students to get their hands dirty.

The school has purchased 10,000 square feet of property surrounded by conservation lands in the Dundas Valley to house its adolescent program.

The $986,000 deal will be finalized at the end of June, said director Tony Evans.

It's good news for the adolescent school — called Strata — whose attempt to lease a parcel of Hamilton Conservation Authority land was scuttled last year when donors convinced the HCA to re-naturalize that site.

But it's better news for Strata students — 24 of whom will start attending classes on the site in September.

The decision to move the adolescent program from Dundas Montessori's home base on Kemp Street to the middle of a conservation area is deeply intertwined with the Montessori philosophy. Evans says that in their teen years, students need a practical, exploratory education that allows them to learn by doing.

"Adolescents need nature. They need to be connected to real work that has significance," Evans said. "I think anyone that's ever been 13, 14, 15 years old remembers that sitting in a chair all day, listening to a teacher tell them about something, isn't the right way to educate a child."

As a result, the Strata program is hands-on for the students and hands-off for the educators. The teens, who range from Grade 7 to Grade 9, don't have to meet formal curriculum requirements until their last year of the program.

They're able to focus on whatever interests them, whether that's playing music, cooking meals in the industrial-grade kitchen, or tending to the class apiary. Almost every subject can be used as a vehicle to teach math, science, history, geography and the arts.

"We've always looked on the curriculum as a bit of a limitation," said Chris Marks, the director of Strata. "We're not handcuffed. We're always open to do whatever comes about. Biology and ecology we do through the bees and the gardens."

The students also participate in "micro-economies," such as their weekly café, when parents and residents are invited into the school for a coffee and a home-baked treat. They're then responsible for balancing the books and managing the cash — which in turn finances their class trips. (Last week, the students spent a week cycling across Niagara).

"When they leave here, they've run a business that generates $30,000 a year," Marks said.

Last year, the school tried to lease the Maplewood Hall lands owned by the Hamilton Conservation Authority, but the idea was opposed by groups such as the Hamilton Naturalists' Club and Environment Hamilton and residents.

The new Strata property, near the Old Mill restaurant beside the Canterbury Hills camp, will allow students to continue to broaden that practical approach to their learning. There's enough room for veggie gardens, a chicken coop, and an expanded apiary.

It also has the capacity for boarding, which Evans hopes to integrate into the program within the next few years.

"Our interest is not to just build a school in the forest for 50 kids. Our interest is to change education — to offer a better and more substantive form of adolescent education," Evans said.

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For the students, Strata is simply a more fun environment in which to learn.

"I love how interactive it is. Instead of sitting at a desk all day, you're actually doing stuff," said student Quinn McGregor.