AUBURN – School leaders plan to buy a double-wide trailer to house part of the Auburn Land Lab when it reopens next fall beside East Auburn Elementary School.

The 13-year-old trailer, to be purchased from Schiavi Home Builders of Oxford for about $42,000, will be placed beside the elementary school cafeteria, along with another mobile classroom already in use.

Together, they will form the new Land Lab.

Plans call for the trailer to be delivered in May while volunteers and staff pack up at the Land Lab’s longtime home, the CP Wight building.

School Committee members unanimously approved the purchase of the trailer Wednesday.

The move is meant to prevent the School Department from spending far more money in renovations to the Wight building, which has a leaky roof and rundown systems.

“The heating has been on its last legs for five years,” Finance Director Jude Cyr said.

The Land Lab has been used by the Auburn School Department and nearby towns for focusing on natural science, though other disciplines come up, too.

The new site is closer to developed parts of Auburn, but it has lots of nearby woods and offers easy access to an outlet of Lake Auburn where the kids can touch the water.

“All things considered, it gives us more opportunities at East Auburn than we have at our current site,” said Jim Chandler, the Land Lab’s director and a consulting science teacher.