Outdoor Adventures students worked on building campfires and other outdoor survival skills at Coastal Rivers Conservation Trusts Plummer Point Preserve in South Bristol. (Photo courtesy Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust)
This summer, kids from five local schools had the opportunity to participate in one of two outdoor summer adventure programs thanks to a partnership between the AOS 93 school district and Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust.
Free of charge thanks to grant funding, the programs took place three days a week and provided transportation, snacks, and lunches. Participating schools included Great Salt Bay Community School, Jefferson Village School, Nobleboro Central School, and South Bristol School, which also hosted kids from Bristol while Bristol Consolidated School is undergoing construction.
For children entering kindergarten through fourth grade, the summer school enrichment program took place outdoors at each school. As a warm-up to summer school academics, these younger grades played active games and explored with Coastal Rivers naturalists.
They went on guided bird walks, played migratory hopscotch, caught and identified insects, read nature books, looked at mammal bones, learned to tell the difference between types of trees, made nature-focused drawings, built outdoor shelters, and played games.
For those entering fifth through eighth grade, Coastal Rivers offered a new outdoor adventures enrichment program at Plummer Point in South Bristol, where students enjoyed hiking the trails at Plummer Point and exploring the seashore.
According to Coastal Rivers education director Sarah Gladu, the program had a three-part focus: problem solving skills, outdoor living skills, and outdoor careers.
Students in the free outdoor adventures enrichment program at Plummer Point went on weekly kayak trips with Midcoast Kayak. (Photo courtesy Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust)
The kids engaged in a number of group challenges, followed by a discussion of how it went: how the challenge was solved, how leadership skills unfolded during the activity, and how the group might meet future challenges more effectively.
Students practiced outdoor skills such as reading a map, using a compass, building a campfire, and cooking over a fire. They went kayaking with guides from Midcoast Kayak one afternoon each week. On one such outing, the group kayaked to Coastal Rivers’ nearby Stratton Island Preserve and hiked the mossy, forested trails around the island.
The kids also met with a variety of professionals whose careers take them outside regularly, including a Maine Forest Ranger, an ecologist, and an oyster farmer.
Lincoln Academy graduate Iris Pope, one of the program instructors, was enthusiastic about the enrichment program.
“It’s fun for (the kids) to be in a familiar place and experience the nature that is right around their school,” she said. “(The program) does a good job of providing kids with educational opportunities that are engaging and, in many cases, new.”
Coastal Rivers is a nonprofit, member-supported, nationally accredited land trust caring for the lands and waters of the Damariscotta-Pemaquid region by conserving special places, protecting water quality, creating trails and public access, and deepening connections to nature through education programs.
For more information, email info@coastalrivers.org or go to coastalrivers.org.
Jefferson Village School students learn to identify trees and search for interesting insects in the schoolyard during the Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust’s summer school enrichment program. (Photo courtesy Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust)
