The Outdoor Insider
Maine Outdoor School's Quarterly E-Newsletter
Issue #25
January 2023
The Outdoor Insider Archive
Most people know that getting outside is healthy and fun, but struggle with meaningfully bringing nature’s benefits into their personal lives, classrooms, or organizations. That’s where we come in.
Narraguagus High School students at the summit of Tunk Mountain
Airline School students on a field trip to Frenchman Bay Conservancy’s Mariaville Falls
Jonesport Elementary School 2nd Grader brainstorming questions to investigate in the woods
OWL Outing Club for Women participants discover different organisms at Ingersoll Point Preserve
Co-Founders' Note:
As the days get longer and brighter once again, our programs at local schools pick up steam now that the holiday vacations are out of the way. We love doing year-round programming and, especially this time of year, getting children and adults alike outdoors to soak in the beauty and fun of winter in Maine. We had our biggest, most impactful year yet with even more to come. Check out our 2022 highlights along with the goings-on of the last quarter.
~Hazel and Joe
There are many ways to support Maine Outdoor School!
Donations of funds and goods help make our programs possible.
Tracks:
Had a fantastic fall full of programs at Ella Lewis (Steuben), Airline (Aurora), Jonesport, Hancock, Lamoine, Trenton, Cave Hill (Eastbrook), and Mountain View (Sullivan) schools.
Led Gifted and Talented program full day field trips with students from MSAD 37, including hiking up Tunk Mountain.
Continued our Grasshoppers Outdoor School monthly program with local homeschoolers.
Got Hancock County 4-H families outside after dark to learn some constellations and experience some adaptations of nocturnal animals.
Collaborated with Women for Healthy Rural Living (WHRL) to host an Orienteering Workshop and continued monthly Outdoor Women Lead (OWL) Outings.
Led our Annual New Year’s Eve Sunset Hike with Crabtree Neck Land Trust.
Check out the “MOS in the News” page to see where we’ve shown up in the press!
Community Commendations:
Photo Courtesy of Blue Hill Consolidated School
As any fan of MOS knows, we’re all about creative collaborations that get more people learning outdoors. Our latest creative collaboration is thanks to the Maine Council of the Atlantic Salmon Federation (MCASF) which has turned the coordination of their Fish Friends program over to our team. Fish Friends is the program that brings Atlantic salmon eggs into classrooms across the state for students to raise them until they develop into fry, then return them to their native rivers–Hazel even participated in this program when she was an 8th-grader!
Through Fish Friends, MCASF aims to both educate future generations on the importance of wild Atlantic salmon and fisheries conservation, as well as provide a unique and fun learning experience. MCASF is one of 6 regional councils associated with the international Atlantic Salmon Federation and they are dedicated to the conservation, protection and restoration of wild Atlantic salmon and their environment. Thanks to MCASF for working with us to get more Maine students engaged with and learning from the wonders that exist in our backyards!
Photo courtesy of Hazel Stark
Biomimicry:
With fewer fungi on the forest floor, and even well into winter when the forest floor becomes covered in snow, you can always look for polypores. One polypore that is especially easy to identify and find, and really shines when adorned with a cap of snow, is the birch polypore.
Birch polypores have been used medicinally by people indigenous to the areas where it is also native for thousands of years. It has been prized not only for its strengthening and wound healing properties, but also for being antibacterial and antiparasitic. Most notably, birch polypores have been used to treat a variety of cancers.
So the next time you’re outside, you could try to find and identify some birch polypores on a dead or dying birch tree near you and reflect on the long importance this fungus has had for people around the world.
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:
“Similar to putting ice on an injury, cold weather can reduce inflammation and pain.”
Learn more in this article.
What's Upstream:
More school programs thanks to Frenchman Bay Conservancy, Crabtree Neck Land Trust, Downeast Audubon, and YWCA-MDI.
Another year of OWL Outings with Women for Healthy Rural Living.
A lot of spring programs are in the works! Stay tuned as more events are added to our Events page and contact us to schedule your programs before our calendar fills up.