In partnership with LincolnHealth’s Community Health Improvement Fund (CHIF), Boothbay Region Elementary School (BRES) announced the start of an after-school, outdoor club for sixth to eighth graders. The school is collaborating with Hearty Roots, a nonprofit focused on providing outdoor wellness programs to kids. 

“It's our mission to guide kids off the grid and into their hearts. We believe that a resilient child is a child that is connected to nature, themselves, and each other,” explained Erin Quinley of Hearty Roots. 

Their offerings include summer camps, camps for children with special needs, overnight adventures for middle schoolers, and teens, as well as in-school/after-school guidance classes. Quinley and her colleague Misha Barker have been serving as the program managers for the K-5 guidance classes at BRES since the beginning of the school year. These classes focus on Social Emotional Learning (SEL) as laid out by Maine Department of Education, while also incorporating a nature element. For example, since this month is “No Bully” November, children were taught a “bystander vs upstander” lesson in the classroom and then went outside to do a related activity.  

Barker shared that she has had BRES teachers approach her, saying their students have been using the language they learned during these guidance classes to identify their emotions. “It’s something that I think a lot of previous generations had to learn on our own, so the ability to (give that language) to kids and help them get a step up with in-person connection, especially when so much of the world is so social media-based and online, is really awesome."

The pair will now serve as program managers for the new outdoor club. The club will be available three days a week with children getting to choose how often they want to attend. They will also be able to choose from high or low-energy activities at each meeting. In addition to incorporating an SEL curriculum, Quinley plans to teach children how to be “outdoor leaders” through practical skill-building such as lighting fires, building shelters, and camping. There are also plans to possibly expand the program with more funding and allow six through eighth graders to mentor younger students. 

Quinley also spoke on the positive effects outdoor learning can have on children’s self-regulation, allowing them to de-stress and reach an emotional stasis that is more receptive to further instruction when they return to the classroom.   

“I was one of those kids in school that if I had been able to go outside and get a break, I wouldn't have been doodling on my pants, endlessly talking to my friends, sneaking books under the table, and having parent-teacher conferences about how I couldn't sit still and listen,” she explained. 

With this idea in mind, BRES is constructing an outdoor classroom that can be used year-round, open to any instructor to use. The space will consist of a 16 x 24-foot canvas tent funded from an over $6,000 donation from Paul Columbe, benches designed by Steve Lorrain and other former BRES trustees, and an outdoor fire pit the kids will help build, according to Shawna Kurr, BRES principal.  

Kurr’s ultimate goal for the new program is for it to be expanded to offer high quality, free educational opportunities for all elementary schoolers. She believes this will help combat the lack of affordable childcare many parents in the region struggle to address. “The vision is to capture as many kids as we can on the peninsula into this programming, which in order to build that dream and make it sustainable it takes additional funding. So that’s what we’ll be hitting the pavement for.”