Since January, eight middle schools selected for grants that help students engage with Maine’s environment have been working diligently to learn as much as they can about the nature of Maine through projects designed by their teachers. Though school is out for the summer, many of these projects will continue into the fall and beyond. Read More
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Windham Middle School Students Help Reduce School Waste
Two weeks ago, I had the great treat to get out of the office and head to Windham Middle School. I met up with NRCM staff member Ryan Parker and two NRCM members to learn what the Windham Middle School Green Team had been up to over the course of the school year. Windham was Read More
Memorial Middle School Students Head Outdoors to Study Maine’s Environment
For the last two weeks of May, Memorial Middle School sixth grade students in South Portland have been immersed in the process of designing and creating interpretive trail signs. Students first looked at different examples of commercially produced trail signs by searching online. They identified characteristics and elements of effective signs and possible topics. On Read More
From Trash to Table, RSU 19 is Seeking to Put Its Food Waste to Better Use
By Lauren Abbate, BDN Staff Bangor Daily News news story ETNA, Maine ― Mid-afternoon on a recent Thursday the students at the Etna-Dixmont School were outside frolicking through a field on the left side of the school. While a passerby might mistake the children’s high spirits for a typical recess session, they were actually participating Read More
Gorham Middle School Weeds Out Invasive Species – Part I
As a continuation of their grant project last year, Gorham Middle School science classes are working to eradicate the invasive Japanese Knotweed from their school grounds. Students are taking their knowledge from the classroom and implementing it through experiments and observations. Here is what they’ve been working on. —Sarah Oberink, NRCM Protecting the Nature of Read More
The Future of Maine’s Environment…It’s All About the Kids
On May 8 and 9, my wife Alix and I, accompanied by Gabrielle Grunkemeyer from NRCM, were hosted by Deer Isle-Stonington Elementary School and the Edna Drinkwater School in Northport. Sarah Oberink, the University of Maine NRCM intern, joined us at Edna Drinkwater. Visiting these schools and learning about the work they are doing helped Read More
Tapping Students’ Interest in Maple Trees in Brewer
The Brewer School’s Community Maple Project has been busy over the last year. In the spring of 2016, we planted sugar maple saplings in our 10-acre forest. Currently our sugarbush is dominant and emerging is a class of red maple. In the long run it would be good to have some sugar maple to replace Read More
Connecting Students to the Food They Eat…or Waste
Exciting things are happening at a rural school district in the heart of Central Maine. RSU 19, a geographically dispersed, rural school district between Waterville and Bangor, is comprised of eight towns: Corinna, Dixmont, Etna, Hartland, Newport, Palmyra, Plymouth, and St. Albans. These communities are among some of the hardest hit by continued cuts to Read More
Growing Education Solutions, Shrinking Environmental Problems
For the past two years NAE Academy (Nokomis Alternative Education) students have been designing, building, and operating their own Aquaponics systems. Aquaponics is the cultivation of fish and plants together in a recirculating system where fish waste provides a nutrient source for the plants and in turn the plants provide a natural filter for the Read More
