ISSUE #19

The Outdoor Insider

MAINE OUTDOOR SCHOOL'S QUARTERLY E-NEWSLETTER

ISSUE #19
JULY 2021

 

Maine Outdoor School exists because we believe that personal and community resilience 
in rural Maine is essential to the resilience of society as a whole. We believe that resilient,
flourishing communities are rooted in the careful study of our history and natural surroundings
by lifelong learners of all ages, backgrounds, and occupations.

Harrington 5th-grader creates a video about lobsters

Women taking a break during the Women's Bike Ride

Upward Bound participant takes in the Bold Coast

OWLette camp participants

Co-Founders' Note:

Big, bold MOS developments occurred this quarter! We were busier than ever with school programs and many community programs and guided experiences for folks on the weekends too. Re-reading the Tracks section below leaves us wondering how we did all that!

On top of all that fantastic programming, we moved offices! We are now located at 87 Main Street in Milbridge in an office within the Women for Healthy Rural Living (WHRL) building across from Milbridge Commons Wellness Park. This is a really positive move as it places us in a more public-facing and convenient downtown location, and it is also a treat to be even closer to the fantastic WHRL team, which continues to be an important MOS partner, specifically through our collaborative OWL-Outdoor Women Lead project.

A great test of the much faster internet in this new office was Hazel attending a 16-hour Racial Equity Institute training via Zoom, which helped bolster our understanding of racism in its institutional and structural forms--critical background information as MOS continues to strive towards equity in all aspects of our organization.

We are so proud of the ways we made an impact this quarter and more confident than ever that our work will continue to make a difference into the future. Please read on to learn more and thank you for your support and interest!

~Hazel and Joe

Tracks:

  • Facilitated a virtual Gifted & Talented program resulting in a student creating this great video about lobsters

  • Taught a flurry of outdoor, standards-aligned school programs for all PreK-8th-graders in Trenton, Beals, Harrington, and Edmunds; 5th-graders in Sullivan; 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th-graders in Milbridge; 5th-graders in Jonesport; and 3rd-8th-graders in Lubec (wow!)

  • Got Washington County families outside and learning from nature as part of our Family Nature Club with Downeast Coastal Conservancy (more outings coming up!)

  • Facilitated two virtual corporate teambuilding experiences focused on nature connection with corporate professionals across the country

  • Led professional development opportunities for Maine teachers learning to align nature-based activities to standards and build outdoor classroom spaces

  • Designed and led a lesson plan and training for Downeast Coastal Conservancy staff looking to enhance their school program offerings

  • Guided a travel writer on a hike who later featured MOS in her blog

  • Got women hiking and biking together as part of the OWL-Outdoor Women Lead Outing Club for Women with Women for Healthy Rural Living and the Bicycle Coalition of Maine (more outings coming up!)

  • Led our first ever OWLette summer day camp for girls with WHRL focused on building outdoor, naturalist, and gardening skills (see the News Center Maine highlight here)

  • Created citizen/community science kits now available to check out from the Milbridge Public Library and led a birding hike for citizen science month in partnership with the library

  • Led two hikes and nature observation activities for Washington County teens participating in Bowdoin College’s Upward Bound program

Check out the “MOS in the News” page to see where we’ve shown up in the press!

 

Milbridge 2nd-grader making a seed ball to spread native wildflower seeds!

Community Commendations:

This quarter’s Community Commendation goes out to Patricia Hayes of Narraguagus Pottery in Cherryfield! When Milbridge Elementary School students wanted to do an end-of-year project focused on helping local plants, we thought that making seed balls would do the trick, but we needed some clay to do the job and Patricia donated some clay to the cause!

Combining native wildflower seeds (provided by Wild Seed Project), potting soil, and clay allowed students to make seed balls they could throw around their yards to encourage native plants to grow (click here for instructions to do this on your own!) They had a blast and made a difference. Thanks for your key support on that project, Patricia!

 

Biomimicry:

On a beautiful sunny morning last summer in a rare moment of calm in the relatively early days of the pandemic, I found myself alone and staring out the window with my camera nearby. I turned to the simple flowers of buttercup for inspiration and was in awe of the contrast between their yellow flowers and the nearby purple blossoms of red clover. I was reminded of that exact color combination that appears between goldenrods and New England asters in late summer. Yellow and purple are reciprocal colors—not only attractive to the human eye, but attractive to more pollinators than either color would attract alone. Friends helping friends.

While there is a lot going on out there and in our lives, there is so much to learn from a field of yellow buttercups and red clovers contributing to the success of the plant community, not just a single species, with their complementary contributions.

This edition of Biomimicry is an adaptation of an episode of The Nature of Phenology, a radio show that Hazel and Joe produce weekly for WERU-FM. You can read or listen to entire past episodes here.

 

Resilience Tip:
Getting kids outside for 40 extra minutes a day drops rates of myopia (improving vision).
(Read more in this podcast transcript)

 

What's Upstream: 

We’re getting ready to schedule school programs again this fall while we continue to provide guided hikes, paddling experiences, and nature exploration through:


Stay tuned to our Events page to learn of other opportunities. You can also check out our public events calendar. Also be on the lookout for our new sign in front of our new office, coming soon!

All MOS programs are fully customizable and suit learners of any age. Visit our website or contact us to learn more.