Outdoor Education Ranks High in School Priorities

By Margaret Shugart

Did you know that kids need core strength to develop the dexterity they need for writing? Or that a child who tinkers with acorns and sticks, making them into fairy homes or other imaginative spaces, may be more likely to impress someone at a high-level job interview than a child who hasn’t? Or that time outside helps kids with impulse control, one of the top indicators of whether a child will be academically successful? And this list goes on-–there are countless benefits to outdoor education, to kids being outside and in nature, playing and imagining, wondering, wandering and pretending, climbing over logs, hiking up trails, testing themselves, and reaping the rewards nature gives us.

Like many schools, outdoor education at Dummerston School took a leap forward during Covid. Not only was the school immediately challenged to find ways for students to be present and safe, the outdoor space itself was in flux, ready for a new chapter. Most of the equipment from the wondrous playground assembled in the 1990s had lived its useful life and been dismantled. A blank slate presented itself to parents and staff as a chance to recreate an environment for children and the community to enjoy. In addition to these pressures and opportunities, the district-wide mergers allowed more capital project funds to flow to Dummerston School and supplement the effort.

It started with the forest. Lance Neeper, father of two children at Dummerston School, found there was not much available on the playground for his kids, and heard from someone that the forest on the hillside was school property. He found an old trail in the woods, trees marked with metal tags, a box that may have contained maps of the trees and he started talking to more people about how the forest could be utilized. He knew if they were going to expand the trail system and open the forest for more use, it would need to be in a sustainable way, designed to prevent erosion and keep important features in place. He reached out to the New England Mountain Biking Association and was connected to trail designer Curtis Franti, who jumped at the opportunity to help design trails for the school. He only charged a nominal fee and marked out trails that worked for the terrain, maximized the space, helped the forest feel bigger than it is, and were suitable for mountain biking. Then a group of dads got to work. Lance, Dustin Manix, Joe Newton, Lenny Giordano, Jared Clark, and Allen Gallup met up at least once a week to cut out the trails. The trail carving was challenging in many spots–volunteers had to chip into the bed of the trail and pack it in, run a rototiller over parts, down trees, and build in features for mountain biking. Lance said all the dads even got Rogue Hoes for Father’s Day to help with the work. “It was kind of healing during the lockdown, knowing we were doing something to help.” They and others still perform periodic maintenance, clearing fallen logs and raking trails clear.

The forest has continued to transform with use. The upper trail has a classroom and picnic tables, donated by Perkins (now LaValley Building Supplies). The lower trail has a classroom pre-K uses daily, filled with ever-changing structures, logs, and art by the students. Molly Oglesby, the pre-K teacher, uses the forest as one of her primary teaching tools. Every day when the children enter the forest, they stop at “The Welcome Tree” and greet the forest with sign language. Each child is encouraged to create mental maps of the trails and take turns being the leader who guides the rest of the class on their chosen path. She explained to me the benefits detailed at the beginning of the article, and more. Just walking in the forest for twenty minutes helps to get the heartrate up and helps the indicators we associate with good health settle and come into place. Her classes study and mimic animal movements, and learn to identify trees and different kinds of birds. They are encouraged to stop and notice what is happening around them with all of their senses, to take in the forest and their surroundings. And there is time, too, for unguided free-play. She even espouses allowing children to be bored because from that place comes great creativity and imagination.

Beth Mongomery, the first-grade teacher, also uses the outdoors in her curriculum. She has been teaching at Dummerston School for six years and said opening up the forest has been a game changer. During Covid, her class was up there most days, primarily using the classroom on the upper trail. This year, there is pressure on all educators to “get back to normal.” A good deal of the curriculum is Smart Board-based, which means staying in the classroom. She also needs a support person to assist in the woods, particularly if a child must travel back to the school for a bathroom stop or other need. But her class is still going into the forest at least two times a week, sometimes more. She wants it to be more than just a token, to keep it a priority. Beth also shared the benefits of outdoor and nature time for kids: fresh air and a place where all their senses come into play, a different skill-set than the classroom, an inspiration for social sciences and other science, and a chance to break down attention barriers some kids face inside.

During Covid, Beth and Molly worked with Joan Carey (previously of the Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center [BEEC], now an educator at Academy School), former kindergarten teacher Ali Gregory, and Sara Cassidy from Putney Central School, to comb through the Vermont Learning Standards for pre-K through first grade, and give ideas of how each standard can be met with outdoor education. It became a document they could share with other educators and Molly gave it to the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union board. BEEC’s teacher, Ellen Peters, still comes in to provide outdoor education.

In dovetail with the forest is the evolving playground, a result of efforts from a hardcontinued on page 14