Asherwood is visited by nearly 6,000 students and others each year. While the majority of these students are from Marion Community Schools, many others come from other public and private schools, and universities. In addition to the formal curriculum and school students, Asherwood is visited by many families, individuals, and community groups throughout the year. Visitors have increased significantly over the recent years. This increase along with the age and condition of the Asherwood Classroom has created the need for a new facility that will improve instructional opportunities, and improve Asherwood’s public outreach potential. The current classroom facility is an aged structure less than 2,000 square feet with actual classroom space of about 1,000 square feet. Often the number of students exceeds the capacity of the building, and parking for busses and other vehicles is severely limited. Under these conditions it is very crowded, storage space is limited, and there is little to no room for laboratory work or establishing technology-based learning centers.

While the science-based curriculum of the Asherwood program is well founded and well respected among teachers and the State Department of Education, it is now time to look to the future and set new standards for learning opportunities through the construction of a new classroom facility. Asherwood: A Vision for the Future is a plan that provides a conceptual view of proposed changes.