Fall 2019 Term Wrap-Up: Over 3,000 Students and Lessons on an Island!
Written by Amalie Sonneborn, Program Manager
Over the past 9 weeks, The Ecology School’s Program Team had the privilege of working alongside 14 Educators from all across the country. We started off the term with only one returning Educator (Yay Josh!), but the newer folks jumped right in and caught on quickly! With their help, we were able to provide Residential, Outreach, and Field Trip programs to so many students this fall. After crunching the numbers, we know that our Residential Program delivered 254 hours of lessons to 1,050 students from 18 different schools. Each of those schools stayed with us at our interim location, Poland Spring Resort, where we have had the pleasure of adventuring. When we add in our Outreach and Day Programs, we reached nearly 2,300 students in the last 9 weeks. These students ranged in age from Kindergarten through 8th grade and left us with new memories of, and connections to, nature.
This year, Intertidal Ecosystem lessons were taught on Mackworth Island in Falmouth.
Students have miles and miles of trails as their outdoor classrooms! On average, students walk 5 miles during a day at our Residential Program.
From skits at the start of lessons to songs in the dining hall, this term was full of magic and goofiness. We have always had fun changing the lyrics of popular songs to sing about ecology. This term, “Sunflower” by ComPost Malone (a parody of “Sunflower” by Post Malone) and “Fallow” by Lady GaGarden and Bradley Corncob (a parody of “Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper) were particularly popular among our students. We also found whimsy through our weather and “What’s Out There?” characters who visited every morning to predict the weather with student volunteers. Our characters flawlessly found ways to weave each day's weather into their zany story lines. This term we saw some amazing characters including an alien and the goat it tried to abduct, pirates, Australian filmmakers, and a pair of migrating birds just to name a few. We are never quite sure who will be helping us predict the weather each week, but they always kept us engaged and ready for the day ahead!
This year schools and students had an opportunity to travel to Mackworth Island for an Intertidal Ecosystem lesson. Mackworth Island, located in Falmouth, has a lot to offer us – a sandy beach, a rocky intertidal zone, and even a patch of salt hay. (What is salt hay you may be asking? It’s a type of grass that is a slender and wiry plant that grows in thick mats 1 to 2 feet high. It’s found in high marsh zones where it is covered at times by high tides.) We found that we are able to have really interesting conversations about marine organisms and their adaptations to survive in various places and spaces. With so many types of substrate, we didn’t have to go far to compare how different creatures were living and using the space. We found crabs, sea stars, and of course, periwinkles. We even found a horseshoe crab carapace one afternoon!
Being in Poland at our interim site has a lot of perks. We have gorgeous sunsets, a fabulous view of the White Mountains, and a well-maintained trail system all around us. Poland Spring Resort is an area rich with history. For one Eco-Inquiry this fall, a group of 8th graders were fascinated with a collection of “relics” that they found along the trail and decided to treat it as an archaeological dig. Together with their Educator, Hazel, they worked to discover how humans had used this land in the past. They found broken teacups, plates, and other miscellaneous items. They worked together to draw conclusions from the materials they found and hypothesized how the materials and area had been used by humans before. The idea for this investigation came from the students. With a lesson like Eco-Inquiry, students are given the opportunity to ask an ecological question and use the scientific method to draw conclusions. This discovery process is a chance for the students to take something that had sparked their interest and apply and execute the scientific method to determine an answer. It is opportunities like this that foster curiosity in our students, which they will take with them after their brief time with us is up.
This Fall 2019 term (our 41st Residential term!) was filled with wonderful memories. Our students walked away with a better understanding of their place in the world and worked on developing the communities with which they arrived. We, at The Ecology School, are so thankful that our job is to help connect students with nature and each other, and we love that we get to do it in such a fun and engaging way. Watching new relationships form both between students and with their teachers is a rewarding experience and a reminder of the importance of our work.
“This week I had so much fun! I made a couple of new friends that I would have probably never talked to if I didn’t come here. I even made up with an old friend who I didn’t really talk to anymore! I tried out being a Zero Hero this week! I am excited to learn about foraging when I get home! When we went to the tide pools, I realized that I want to be a Marine Biologist when I am older! I had SO MUCH FUN here at The Ecology School! This week was truly amazing!””
“I am so excited to tell Mom and Dad about all of the perks of nature that I learned. For example, how if you hum to a periwinkle it comes out of its shell. It was so much fun trying the winter green tea that Clayton made. Hopefully I can make it at home! When I arrive home, I really want to start composting. It is easy and great for the environment!”